LIFE LINES

THE IRFAN I KNEW (LONG BEFORE HE BECAME IRRFAN)

A still from the film Madari.

By ASIF ULLAH KHAN

As tributes poured in from all around the world and Indian television channels abruptly interrupted COVID-19 coverage and started devoting special shows on Irrfan, realization dawned on me on how great a star my friend Irfan was.

He added the extra ‘r’ to his name on the advice of a numerologist.

Whenever he visited Jaipur after attaining stardom, he never betrayed that feeling, it was as though the success had not sunk in.

Of course, he had become more intense as a person because of the kind of effort he was putting into his roles, but apart from this, he remained that same old shy and introverted boy, who was bullied in school.

My association with Irfan goes back to our mohalla days when we used to play cricket on a vacant ground near the central jail in Jaipur. I came to know Irfan through a common friend Iqbal, whom we used to call ‘Amitji’ as Iqbal was tall and lanky and wore his hair long and parted in the middle like Amitabh Bachchan did. It was Iqbal who wanted to be an actor. During that period Irfan never displayed any inclination to be an actor – like every other young boy, he also wanted to be a cricketer. The acting bug bit him when he saw Iqbal doing a play. Iqbal recalls, “When Irfan saw me, he very shyly asked me, ‘Iqbal mian (since Iqbal was his mentor of sorts he always addressed him thus) muhje bhi role dilwao’ (Iqbal mian, help me get a role as well.” Even at Rajasthan College in Jaipur, Irfan was more interested in getting into the cricket team which he failed to do.

A still from the film The Lunchbox.

It was during a chance meeting with another common friend, Yusuf Khurram, who was preparing for the entrance exams for the National School of Drama, that for the first time Irfan showed an interest in acting. He started going to rehearsals with Yusuf. After graduation, Yusuf joined the NSD. Now gaining admission in the NSD became Irfan’s main mission in life. He enrolled in the Dramatics department of Rajasthan University, and in the second attempt got into NSD.

In 1990, I left for Dubai to join an English daily and Irfan landed in Mumbai. Surprisingly, he got a break with Govind Nihalani casting him in Drishti, a film on extramarital affairs, in which Irfan’s long lovemaking scene with Dimple Kapadia made news. I still remember that when I came to Jaipur on my first vacation in 1992, Iqbal showed me a copy of  India Today which had done a feature on Irfan calling him the next Naseeruddin Shah. Showing me the photographs with Dimple Kapadia, Iqbal asked me: “Do you recognise this man?” and I said: “Oh my god, your friend has become a big star”.

Although Drishti received the National Award for the Best Hindi Feature Film and critics praised Irfan’s performance, it did nothing for his career. He did not get any offers and had to do small roles in television serials to survive. Suddenly, he stopped doing television, saying he was wasting himself. It was quite a bold decision as television was booming in India at that time. He roughed it out. Perhaps his weaker economic background came to his rescue – he was used to hardship though he hailed from the royal khandan of Tonk, descendants of the nawab.

Most people don’t know that during this period he suffered a nervous breakdown of sorts when Manoj Bajpayee, who was staying with Irfan, made it big with Satya. But then, as destiny would have it, British filmmaker Asif Kapadia cast him in The Warrior, which won the Best British Film Award at BAFTA. And the rest, as they say, is history. After returning from Dubai in 2004, I occasionally met Irrfan as he was known by then. He used to come to Jaipur, especially during Makar Sankranti, as he loved flying kites. Despite so much fame and wealth, he stayed in his old house and flew kites from its terrace. The stardom never went to his head. Once Yusuf, his senior at NSD, told him, “At least one of us NSDians has made it big”. Irfan responded, ‘Yusuf bhai, bas Allah nay haath pakad liya (I have made it by the grace of god)’.”

After he was diagnosed with cancer, his Jaipur friends lost touch with him. Look at the irony that he couldn’t attend the funeral of his mother whom he loved and whose common refrain was, “Irfan mian, aap apni sehat ka khayal nahi rakhte. Aap bade laparwah ho (you are careless about your health).” In a way, perhaps it’s a blessing that she passed away two days before him as she would have been devastated by his loss.

My thoughts are with his wife Sutapa and sons Ayan and Babli whom I have not had the opportunity to meet. Despite their long relationship during their NSD days, Irfan had much difficulty in pronouncing her Bengali name correctly. I wish that the Almighty had given Irfan more days to enjoy the fruits of his success as a major of part of his life had been a very tough struggle.

Irfan loved to fly kites. Who knew that one day the heavenly winds would take him so high that he would become invisible.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Asif Ullah Khan.

• Asif Ullah Khan is a journalist based in Jaipur, India. He writes for The Diplomat, India Legal, The Wire and The ASEAN Post.