Mushtaq Khan

If you have watched Hindi films at any point in the last thirty years, you have watched Mushtaq Khan. Born in Baihar in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district in 1969, he came up through theatre and started in films in the early 1980s, and has been the reliable four-minute presence in an enormous number of them since.

Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, Jodi No. 1, Welcome: he turns up, does the job with a comic timing that never looks like effort, and leaves the scene funnier than he found it. Audiences do not always reach for the name and know the face instantly, which is the character actor’s entire deal.

That is its own kind of stardom, and the street cameras clearly agree. Everything below is our own footage.

More on Mushtaq Khan: en.wikipedia.org