Irrfan's end came furtively for his admirers. Almost as quietly as Irrfan himself had entered into our lives through his movies. Irrfan Khan had always been something of an enigma. He was obviously a very talented actor. And versatile too. But he was nothing like the cookie-cutter stars that abound in showbiz. Slowly and steadily the small-town boy from Tonk, an NSD graduate had created his own brand of a genteel sort of stardom that did not hanker for the top slot in the numbers game.
Nor did he crave constant attention. Irrfan had been out of the public eye for over a year since he was diagnosed with cancer. That news that had quite shocked everybody. And, when he returned to shoot for Angrezi Medium, we all cheered believing that maybe the actor would be able to bounce back. Although he was only meeting a close circle of people and hardly doing any press, one did not read it as a sign of what was to come.
Director Homi Adajania who helmed Irrfan's last film Angrezi Medium recounted this incident to me, "When Irrfan walked onto the set on the first day of the shoot, it had been a year since he had acted as he was undergoing treatment for his cancer. I jokingly asked him if he remembered how to act. He seriously replied that he really wasn’t sure. We didn’t just laugh at this, we cracked up hysterically. Then we looked at each other, abruptly stopped laughing and he said that he wasn’t sure about what he was going to do, but he was very sure that he wasn’t going to use any process that he had used earlier. He claimed 'that Irrfan Khan' didn’t exist anymore."
It's true. Irrfan had often reiterated that he didn't like taking himself too seriously. Though he had reached the heights of stardom and was successful even as an international actor in Hollywood, his personality was one with an endearing, unassuming outlook. As an artiste, he often indicated that he preferred being known for his work and not the accompanying trivia.
During the course of an interview I did with him a few years ago, he explained his view of his stardom thus, “When I started out in movies, I observed that there was a kind of disparity which comes when you watch a film and you start feeling that the on-screen creatures are special and you (the viewer) are a substandard creature. There is something ugly in creating that disparity which reinforces the notion that I (the actor) am something special. To me, the most important thing is to communicate that whatever I am doing on screen, is possible for you (the viewer). Only then it is worthwhile to be an actor. There are people working tirelessly, just to change other people’s lives. Those are the real heroes. For a healthy society, aspirations should be directed in the right direction." And Irrfan truly lived life by this philosophy. He has accomplished the impossible—of being remembered by the impressive legacy of powerful films he co-created, and not for his personal life or lifestyle.
Most often we bring up associations and salutations of all the famous people that an actor has worked with, to make the point about their worthiness. Or their importance in the larger scheme of things. With Irrfan, somehow it seems unnecessary or irrelevant. His relationship with cinema and the audience was always about crafting characters of such finesse that they would be imprinted in our collective memories for posterity just as Maqbool, Paan Singh Tomar, Saajan Fernandes (The Lunchbox), Ashoke Ganguli (The Namesake) are. Almost every eulogy that is pouring in from his peers and colleagues is a tribute to him as an actor. Akshay Kumar hailed him as “One of the finest actors of our time" while veteran film-maker Subhash Ghai said, “You will be marked as an institution in the art of acting in transforming a theatre-style acting to improvisational style acting on Indian screen."
I think that had he been alive, these would bring him some happiness. Because he had struggled –not for work as much, but for the industry to value him. That did not come easy in an industry propelled by a stereotypical singing-dancing formulaic hero. When Irrfan shared the Best Actor’s trophy at the Screen Awards for his performance in Paan Singh Tomar with Ranbir Kapoor for his performance in Barfi, he had a tinge of disappointment on his face. But, he didn’t let that hold him back. He graciously acknowledged his colleague's victory along with his own. And thereafter went on to hone his craft further. Irrfan chiseled his own easy-going persona for the more mainstream films—we saw him perfect it in films like The Lunchbox, Karwaan, Hindi Medium, among others. And, when he won the Best Actor Award in the Popular category for Hindi Medium at both the Star Screen Awards and Filmfare Awards where all mainline male stars were in competition, he knew he had ultimately shattered the acceptance barrier. Almost parallely he had also become famous in big-ticket Hollywood productions like Life of Pi, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Jurassic World, as an international actor.
I shall always remember this one time that I went to meet him and his wife Sutapa at his office in Andheri. I was impressed by what I saw- the office was not a homage to a star's vanity. It was a tastefully done space with high ceilings, an assortment of books and knick-knacks he had collected over the years. But, what struck me the most was that unlike other offices of actors, he had not displayed even a single photo of himself. When I brought it up, he said, "Life is transitory, so to freeze something and depend on that is very limiting. I would rather connect to the transitory nature of life and be okay with it."
And that I believe, was the essence of Irrfan, the actor, and the man.
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