He was more than just the comedian, a staple brought into the plot to invoke laughs. Govardhan Kumar Asrani was also the quiet character actor who was so much a part of the middle-of-the-road movies that now epitomise a golden era in Hindi cinema.

Asrani, who died on Diwali afternoon and was cremated quietly on Monday evening without any fanfare as the country celebrated the festival of lights, was 84.

He will always be remembered as the jailor from ‘Sholay’ whose loud, exaggerated persona evoked laughter and whose dialogue ‘Hum angrezon ke zamane ke jailor hain’ is quoted almost as if on loop 50 years later.

That same year came Basu Chatterjee's ‘Chhoti Si Baat’ in which Asrani played the smooth-talking Nagesh trying to stymie the hero Amol Palekar's chances with Vidya Sinha, and the s

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