Kuku Kohli

Kuku Kohli, born Avtar Kohli on 4 June 1949 in Peshawar, was an Indian film director, producer, screenwriter and editor whose name is tied to one of Hindi cinema's most durable debut images: Ajay Devgn standing astride two moving motorcycles in Phool Aur Kaante (1991). He died on 25 August 2026 in Mumbai, aged 77, after a cardiac arrest. He had spent more than three decades in the industry, much of it in the engine room of commercial Hindi films before he became a director in his own right.

English Wikipedia and Times of India give his birth name as Avtar Kohli. IMDb also lists the alternative name Sandesh Kuku Kohli, and a Hindustan Times report quotes friend and filmmaker Ashoke Pandit referring to him as Sandesh Kohli. His public professional name, and the name under which obituaries were written, is Kuku Kohli. He is not the actor Armaan Kohli and not the cricketer Virat Kohli. Schooling and the date of any move from Peshawar to India are not made public in the sources used here.

What is documented is a long apprenticeship with Raj Kapoor. Kohli assisted Kapoor on Bobby, Satyam Shivam Sundaram and Prem Rog, learning the practical side of a large Hindi production. Later tributes put that apprenticeship at about eleven years. He then worked as second-unit director on Betaab (1983), the film that launched Sunny Deol and Amrita Singh and ran to a golden jubilee, and on Arjun (1985), with Sunny Deol and Dimple Kapadia, described in his own publicity bio and later obituaries as a silver jubilee film. Those jobs put him beside action, romance and the mechanics of a star launch before he took the director's chair himself.

In 1991 he directed two films. Kohraam, an action film starring Dharmendra, with Chunky Panday, Sonam, Amrish Puri and Aruna Irani among the cast, was released on 18 October 1991. Phool Aur Kaante followed on 22 November 1991, produced by Dinesh Patel, with music by Nadeem-Shravan, and a cast that included Madhoo, Amrish Puri, Aruna Irani and Jagdeep. Kohli later said he had been looking for a newcomer because he was getting his own break as a director. Akshay Kumar had been his first choice and had even shot a test song. Dates collided with a Pramod Chakravorty project. Kohli, pressed by a new producer, looked again. He found a photograph of Veeru Devgn's son, then called Raju, in Veeru's office, auditioned him, and heard him rattle off Zanjeer dialogues. Kohli said he saw depth in the young man's eyes. Ajay Devgn did the film's famous split-bike entry without a double, Kohli later told Mumbai Mirror. The film opened against Yash Chopra's Lamhe and, unlike that prestige release, ran for a long commercial life. Reports and Kohli's own publicity notes call it a diamond jubilee success. It remains the credit by which he is known.

He kept working in the same popular idiom. Suhaag (1994), with Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, Karisma Kapoor and Nagma, was another commercial hit and an early pairing of Devgn and Kumar. Haqeeqat (1995), with Ajay Devgn and Tabu, drew seven Filmfare nominations, including Best Director for Kohli, and a Screen Award nomination for Best Director. He later directed Anari No. 1 (1999), with Govinda in a double role; Zulmi (1999), with Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna; Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa (2002), which brought Nadeem-Shravan back for a romance with newcomer leads and which Kohli described as a silver jubilee; and Woh Tera Naam Tha (2004), with Arjan Bajwa and Kanchi Kaul, his last film as director. He spoke in later interviews as someone who still believed newcomers could be introduced if a director was willing to work with them, not only with established stars.

His personal life was public in a quieter, more tangled way. He first married Rita Kohli. They had two daughters: Pooja Kohli, a producer, and Karishma Kohli, a filmmaker who has assisted on Kabir Khan films including Ek Tha Tiger and Bajrangi Bhaijaan and co-directed the Netflix series The Fame Game. Karishma married actor Mikhail Yawalkar in 2025. IMDb spells the first wife's name Ritu; Wikipedia, Times of India and News9 use Rita. This profile uses Rita unless the family standardises the spelling. No son is documented. He should not be confused with Armaan Kohli.

In 1990 he married actress Aruna Irani. The couple had no children together. For years Irani said she kept the marriage private. She has given more than one account of what she knew and when. In some interviews she said he did not tell her at first that he was already married. In others she said she knew, because his wife and children came to the sets, and that she did not want to speak of it while that marriage still existed. She said she chose not to have a child with him because she did not want a child to carry the taunt of being a second wife's daughter. Kohli, asked in 2022 about the affair and the two households, said such things happened in the industry, that they worked together and exchanged ideas, and that managing two homes was "neither easy nor difficult; it depends how you manage." Aruna Irani appeared in several of his films, including Kohraam and Phool Aur Kaante.

After the last feature he stayed inside the industry's institutions. At his death he was general secretary of the Indian Film and Television Directors' Association. In December 2023 he was photographed at the inauguration of a new office of the Indian Motion Picture Producers' Association. The portrait used on his Wikipedia page, and on this memorial, is from that day. He was a low-profile figure by the standards of the stars he launched, more often spoken of as a technician of popular cinema than as a public personality. At an IMPPA office event that December he praised murals of film labour, saying there was respect for every character painted on the wall, from the camera to the producer.

On the night of 24 August 2026 he felt unwell. His wife's spokesperson told Times of India that he suffered a mild heart attack, was admitted to Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital that night, and underwent angioplasty. He seemed stable. On 25 August, around 5:15 pm, he suffered a massive cardiac arrest. The spokesperson said Aruna Irani had been speaking and messaging with him, and that he had told her, "Let's not go overboard," before he stopped responding. Ashoke Pandit told Hindustan Times there had been no long illness, that it was a massive heart attack, and that Kohli was general secretary of IFTDA. He died that day at the hospital, aged 77.

His funeral procession left the family home in Andheri West on 26 August. He was cremated at the Oshiwara Crematorium. Aruna Irani, daughters Pooja and Karishma, and colleagues including Rohit Shetty, Vicky Kaushal and Katrina Kaif were among those who paid respects. A prayer meet was held on 29 August 2026 at Celebration Sports Club in Andheri West, attended by names including Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff and Anupam Kher. No further public resting place for the ashes has been stated.

What he leaves is a working director's record of 1990s Hindi cinema: motorcycle entries, family melodramas, and the practical business of putting a new face in front of the camera. Ajay Devgn's career is the proof most people cite. The films after that show a man who kept directing in the same commercial language, then stayed with the directors' association until the afternoon he died. In January 2026 he had still been commenting in public on a theatrical re-release of Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa. No official social homepage was found. Net worth is not made public.