Filmmaker Anup Singh had made up the upstairs room in his residence at Pointre, France, waiting for the arrival of Irrfan Khan and his wife Sutapa Sikdar. This was sometime in 2018 when Irrfan was in London for treatment. This room would often come up in Anup’s conversations with the actor; how it has a window that opens to a cherry tree in the garden, housing a dozen birds. Anup also wanted Irrfan to taste a plump cherry from the tree. And yet, it was this tree under whose branches Anup went rushing to, while still trying to process the news of Irrfan’s passing on April 29, 2020.
Irrfan had promised to stay with him, if he got better. But that promise remains unfulfilled. Even over a month after Irrfan’s death, Anup, who has worked with him on two films Qissa (2013) and The Song of Scorpions (2017), would find himself in the room that he tidied up for Irrfan. He would see the actor there, sometimes. They would play carrom, share a cup of tea or discuss their fondness for Nusrat Ali Khan’s songs. “When I saw the room a month later, it was empty. That was when it hit me that he was never going to come back,” says Anup Singh, over a video call from Switzerland.
For a long time Anup tried to not remember anything about Irrfan. And yet, the weight of grief was overbearing and it all came gushing one fine day. He began noticing Irrfan’s looming presence in everyday elements; the hum of his house reminded him of Irrfan’s voice; the sway of the wind would remind him of Irrfan’s walk in The Song of Scorpions.
A book cover of Irrfan: Dialogues with the Wind by director Anup Singh | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Irony too, was at play: Irrfan played a ghost named Umber Singh in Qissa and now it appeared that the ‘spirit’ of Irrfan was visiting Anup in his thoughts. The filmmaker had a realisation. That perhaps something was incomplete in his relationship with Irrfan; the duo was supposed to work on a third film. “I took that as a sign and started writing the script. As soon as I wrote the first scene, I felt we were working together again and that brought a sense of calm,” he adds. He kept a separate notebook, journalling memories that tumbled out. When Anup put out a few of these on social media, one of his close friends and poet saw an Irrfan markedly different from what was known to the public. “He told me, ‘It seems to me that you saw a certain spirit that he [Irrfan] allowed you to see. You give us an insight into the man also.’ That was the point I went back to my notes,” says Anup, whose book Irrfan: Dialogues with the Wind (published by Copper Coin) has a foreword by legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan.
Anup feels that once Irrfan started trusting him, he allowed to see a side of him that he kept guarded from the world. For instance, in the book, Anup recounts an incident during the making of Qissa when Irrfan began to play underarm cricket with crew members. For Anup, it was important to watch Irrfan in these moments to understand how he was using the space around him.
The last dance
Irrfan: Dialogues with the Wind is also a deep dive into Irrfan’s methods of discovering a character, like he did for Qissa. He tells Anup in the book that Umber Singh was too dark for him.
Irrfan possessed a rare quality as an actor, argues Anup. He substantiates his point in the book by writing in detail about the actor’s love for flying kites. “When we were shooting for Qissa, he had brought around 20-25 kites. I asked him once about his relationship with kites and he said, ‘When the string of the kite is in my hand, I feel I am in control. Yet, at any moment, the wind can come and I might no longer be in control. This tiny movement of the string either keeps the kite in the sky or comes crashing down. To me, it is a matter of life and death. That is my relationship with acting’.”
Anup Singh | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Anup makes a fascinating observation about the lengths Irrfan would go as an actor, “So far in the characters he played, you will notice that he brings about a certain quality of hesitation, as if he is uncertain about what he is doing. With Irrfan, he is always listening to the world. If a touch of wind caresses his face, he will react to that. And in the distance if there is a train passing, he will use that for his performance. That is very rare for an actor. When you watch him on screen, we in our bodies also hesitate. He puts us in a state of waiting, meaning he no longer performs on the screen but with us.”
Irrfan Khan on the set of ‘The Song of Scorpions’ | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
For this book, Anup went back to a few emotionally-draining memories to piece together the Irrfan he knew. But if there was a defining moment, it was when he visited him for the last time in the hospital in Mumbai. Irrfan would often talk to Anup about death but the latter wanted to divert his thoughts. Their last conversation was about the third film they were supposed to make. It was a film about dance, but Irrfan could hardly move.
Veteran actor Waheeda Rehman was supposed to play a mentor in the film. On Irrfan’s suggestion, they watched a clip of Rehman’s ‘Jaane Kya Tune Kahi’ from Pyaasa. “Watching the clip, he slowly got up from the bed, put the laptop down and very slowly started dancing the way Waheeda ji did. That to me was Irrfan. Even in the deepest of pain and face-to-face with death, this man was dancing to life.”
Irrfan: Dialogues with the Wind is available online
Published - February 16, 2022 04:16 pm IST
