On 29th April 2020, Irrfan Khan, one of Bollywood's finest actors passed away. Swastik Routray pens an impassioned tribute to the great thespian.
The first combination of alphabets I typed on MS-WORD was ‘Irrfan’. It immediately registered a red-underline. Besides infuriation, I pitied Microsoft (a productivity suite based on digit-fed algorithms) for its lack of awareness. Was I being silly? I don’t know. I don’t care.
As much as I outrageously wished to publicly shame those who were uninformed of his legacy, I had to restrain myself. Chiefly because I longed to see him hold an ‘Uncle Oscar’ at least once in his entire career. Not least because the damned metal could do anything to further reward his talent, but its very presence would work wonders in warding off a third-world notion of India. His Oscar win could have fenced against a swarm of agenda-stricken filmmakers with self-righteous intentions of fetishizing the income-inequality in India.
Sure, Irrfan Khan stays for posterity, but I don’t want him to be remembered by the tags that go “method actor”, “most intense actor”, “his performances are power-packed”. These are downright disrespectful.
For whippersnappers to truly appreciate what he is, an insignificant part of his filmography is enough. Extremely insignificant. It’s a sequence from Wes Anderson’s classic ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ set in Jodhpur. Irrfan Khan is the father of a kid who has lost his life being careless in an upstream canal. Sir Irrfan is breathlessly convincing, both loud and subtle. His notes rise and fall as if pre-written. His movements are frenzied in denial. Unable to figure what is happening, he wails and weeps. The performance makes your blood curdle and leaves a lump in your throat.
Sir Irrfan is an irreparable loss. His dialogues are hard lessons for life. The fact that is life was a lesson passes by me as a gust of agony. We are left to pick the pieces of our lives and wonder whether "...I have surrendered" meant surrendered to fighting. If yes, it's the cruelest yet wonderful lesson I have learned.