After fighting a battle for two years since he was diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumour in 2018, actor Irrfan Khan passed away at the age of 54 on Wednesday. As the film industry reels from the loss of one of India’s most versatile actors and successful imports to Hollywood, a few of Irrfan’s friends speak to us about how they are still struggling to come to term with the news — and how they will remember him.
Kabir Khan, filmmaker
He was on my wishlist for so many characters but I got to work with him in only one film, New York . He was an actor who brought his own to every character. The way he would discuss the character, the character’s place within the film, it was all about what he brought to the table; how he would balance his own ideology against that of the character. He got the correct balance. It was an enriching experience working with him.
New York was my second film. It was a young cast and crew. There was a lot energy packed in our 100-day schedule. I remember him telling me, ”Mahaul bahut achcha bana rakha hai (You have built a good atmosphere)”. We had a good time working together.
I had met and had a conversation with him last in London when I was researching for 83 . He was having breakfast outside Harrods and looked good. I was happy that the treatment was working for him. I didn’t expect his condition would deteriorate and he’d leave us so soon.
Tigmanshu Dhulia, filmmaker
We have known each other for 34 years. I was 19 when I joined NSD. He was in the third year. There had been a zero session and there was no second year so the proximity with the seniors grew.
Dost chala gaya (A friend has left). I could share anything with him, even my defeats and evil thoughts.
He kept changing roles at various points in my life. He was a pal, a teacher, a mentor, an elder brother.
I had approached Manoj Bajpayee for Haasil initially. Irrfan was the only other choice for it. He understood that the [breakthrough] role of Ranvijay Singh that he played in the film was not a villain. Much has been said about the student politics in the film. But it is essentially a film about lovers with politics as the backdrop. He is obsessed with Niharika [played by Hrishita Bhatt]. He was an evolved actor who understood that.
He came from a simple, middle class family in Jaipur. He was hungry for knowledge and evolved and cultivated it.
Talking to him was like having a conversation with the Dalai Lama. Kahan milte hain aise log? (Where do you find such people?). There was something Zen about him.
I was taken in with his technique and tools as an actor. He took one element of the character and built around it. He acted the whole story than go scene by scene. Thats the reason why his performances felt organic. He played Paan Singh with a sense of nobility.
Such a big actor comes once in decades. It feels sad that he just went away with a few of us [for the last rites]. People loved Irrfan. There would have been thousands to bid him farewell under normal circumstance.
Juhi Chaturvedi, screenwriter
One has known for two years about his health issues but today, when the news came, the feeling was of such a personal loss, as if someone your own had gone away. There is this sad, hurting feeling.
The way he extended himself [as an actor into the character] one didn’t know when did Irrfan enter Rana [his character in Piku] and vice versa. He poured himself so much into characters that they became your people, not an actor playing a role. It felt that you knew them well.
He had given me this book by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi called Kayi Chaand The Sar-E-Aasman . It had been lying with me for six years. I was daunted by its Urdu. It was just three weeks back that I finished it and couldn’t even message him.
I think all of us are feeling a sense of void. Even in silence you could feel the energy of his presence. There are souls who have the intuitiveness, they know you. There are the vibrations of their strong presence. Even while people are grieving in our homes there is an energy in the air. There is that kind of intensity.
If you look at it another way, it’s we who are sad and have to struggle; he is free of his sufferings.
Saket Choudhury, filmmaker
It’s a terrible loss and I always believed that Irrfan would overcome this challenge because he had always accomplished the unexpected and impossible. He was a remarkable talent, at the peak of his powers…
Vishal Bhardwaj, filmmaker
I feared that he will be gone much before his time but didn’t expect that it will be so devastating and ravaging to me personally. It feels as if I am torn into two parts. A part of me has died with him.
Anup Singh, filmmaker
Those of us who knew him, watched him on the screen, were bequeathed a legacy whether we realise it or not. What we do with that legacy will not only define our spirit for the rest of our lives but will create or devastate generations to come. An artist of his passion leaves behind something ineffable and yet more powerful than a thousand suns. He leaves behind the truth of feelings.
Gourang Agarwarl, friend from Jaipur
“Irrfan Khan was a legend, just not a person. He was a very good kite flyer and a very humble human being. Irrfan was very involved in Jaipur’s theatre, helping festivals and a lot of artistes financially. Lot of people knew a lot of about him but he was a spectacular shaayar (poet). He was a secular person and he was very concerned about his family. Till the time he was healthy, we used to fly kites together.
Our friendship is almost 13 years old and over the years we became closer. Irrfan had knowledge about everything and he used to read a lot. He studied a lot and he was the one who recommended Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens to me. He also very concerned about the world.”
Raj Bhansal, cinema owner and film distributor
“I’ve been into film distribution for three generations and I distributed four of his films, Maqbool, Right Yaaa Wrong, Gunday and Piku. I met him about five to six years ago in Lokhandwala (Mumbai) through a common friend. He was outrightly very friendly and we spoke about Jaipur, his family and films. I was pleasantly surprised seeing people talking about Irrfan on social media, like they have felt a personal loss. But it’s clear he has left a scar in the heart of audiences. He was very down to earth, he was introverted and very helpful to everyone.”
Salim Arif, peer, friend, theatre director, and senior from NSD
My association with Irrfan Khan started when he entered the National School of Drama, he was my junior and he had a part in the play Fujiyama directed by Prasanna. I saw this lanky young awkward guy who was Irrfan from Jaipur, but he had this way of speaking and within those two months, he had realised the potential of the role and executed it with a personal stamp. After he came to Bombay, I saw he had agreed to do a minor role in Salaam Bombay and as destiny would have it, 15 years later, he had the main role in The Namesake, also directed by Mira Nair. From a cameo to the main role, the journey was a metaphor for his life, of a boy from a smaller town like Jaipur. His wife, Sutapa Sikdar groomed him as a person. Irrfan was a rough stone that could be cut into a diamond. I admire him for his ability to wait for a big break, he waited several years, always keeping an eye out for good scripts and good roles. I know of roles that he refused, major roles that he quietly declined even from filmmakers he was indebted to.
He was a fairly introverted guy, a thinker and he was intellectually very refined with a good sense of poetry. He could comprehend things in a sharper and intuitive way than most others and he was always ready for a laugh, even at himself. As a person, of course, he is known as an intelligent actor, but I think the remarkable thing was his ability
to understand the craft of acting, the potential of a script and the ability to give it his own stamp.
Haider Ali Zaidi, IPS Officer and DIG
I’ve been friends with him for 40 years. We’re chaddi buddies as they say. We used to live close to each other, going to the same school and university. He was like a brother to me and we used to enjoy each other’s company. He invited me to film premieres he used to enjoy flying kites at my house. He was an intense human being, and an introvert. When I visited him in England, when he was ill, he never once talked about his illness and always made everyone laugh, even during chemotherapy. He was a very kind person. He travelled a lot and achieved a lot, but he never made you feel like he was better. Everyone related to his simplicity and he was a grounded, down-to-earth human being without a shred of hypocrisy.
As told to Namrata Joshi and Deborah Cornelious
