I remember the first time I watched Irrfan Khan on screen, 14 years ago. Not unusually, 12-year-old me was surfing the channels on the TV till something grabbed my attention on Star One. It was his voice that caught me – he was setting the stage for an episode of a show called Mano Ya Na Mano (Believe it or not). The show itself was about mystical, inexplicable and spooky things that have happened in India – which was right up my alley – but it was Irrfan’s calm anchoring that pulled me in.
From that day on, I would try to catch the reruns of the show every afternoon – I wasn’t allowed to watch TV too late at night, which is when the show aired.
Irrfan Khan holding up a mask to cover half his face ominously, with Mano Ya Na Mano written on one side of the screen, is my first memory of the actor, and the one that is most vivid in my mind on the day of his death.
There is not a shred of a doubt that Irrfan was a versatile actor, constantly trying to break the mould. He played the villain in films like Maqbool, intense and complex characters such as Lafcadia in The Warrior and in Paan Singh Tomar, romantic leads in Life in a Metro, Piku and The Lunchbox, and comic characters in Karwaan, Hindi Medium and Blackmail.
However, beyond his acting, Irrfan Khan stands out in the film industry at large because he didn't stick to roles he was comfortable in. Bollywood has ‘kings of romance’, ‘perfectionists’, actors known for doing their own stunts. These actors have carved out a niche for themselves, and after putting in years of work, they play plenty of safe roles that audiences enjoy them in.
Irrfan, however, stuck to no such niches or titles.
He said something similar in an interview to GQ in 2012. Expressing a desire to blur the lines between an actor and a star, he said, “I want to bridge that gap, ideally, so that I can be both. Some stars are even trying to move to the other side and portray characters in their own way. And that's a very positive thing. Some stars are fascinated by themselves and don't mind playing themselves again and again. For me, playing myself is boring, really boring.”
Five years later, he wrote on Instagram on a photo of him holding a Star Screen Award for Best Actor: “Haasil se Hindi Medium tak, villain se popular hero tak.” (From Haasil to Hindi Medium, from villain to popular hero.) And he truly blurred lines, and lived his desire.
When he shared his diagnosis of having an neuroendocrine tumour in 2018, he once again reiterated his willingness to adapt to the unexpected. "Life is under no obligation to give us what we expect,” Irrfan had said, quoting novelist Margaret Mitchell. "The unexpected makes us grow, which is what the past few days have been about."
And so, you never knew what kind of role he would take on next. Every time I walked into a theatre to watch an Irrfan Khan film, I could not imagine the character without him when I walked out.
I remember watching the trailer of Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan starrer Piku, and thinking, Deepika and Irrfan are such an unlikely pair. But as the film ended, it was clear that no other actor could play the poker-faced Rana Chaudhury other than Irrfan. His own personal charm and dry humour blended well with Rana’s. It was effortless to believe the friendship (and something more) that blossoms between him and Piku in the film.
There was also something subversive about the way Irrfan executed romance in his films. It was hardly the wooing-courtship-love-song-and-dance routine that’s popular in Indian films. And it’s not that the other trope has not been represented – but for it to come from an actor of Irrfan’s stature, consistently, was refreshing.
Whether it was the reserved and enderaring Saajan in The Lunchbox, straightforward Monty in Life In a Metro, or self-deprecating, respectful yet flawed Yogi in Qarib Qarib Singlle – seeing Irrfan in a romantic role was always pleasantly surprising. It made me experience, and aspire for a romance that was different from the whirlwind, passionate, hot and heavy kinds that we see in mainstream films. It made me prefer a sweet, friendly, fun, and imperfect one – much closer to people we see in real life.
Beyond romance though, for me, Irrfan’s most memorable roles have been comic ones. Irrfan had a way of being effortlessly funny – as though it was so much a part of his character that he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. Many of the characters, like Irrfan himself, had few airs. He carried his unique deadpan humour to many of his characters in recent times – Raj Batra from Hindi Medium and Dev Kaushal from Blackmail happen to be two of my favourite roles he has played. In the wrong hands, they could have been quite forgettable – a wealthy man struggling to fit into the upper class due to his lack of English diction, or a toilet paper salesperson in a troubled marriage. But Irrfan was among those actors who could make just about any character memorable, just because he played them.
At some point, I started booking movie tickets just because Irrfan Khan was in the cast. Was I a “diehard fan"? By no stretch of the imagination. Was it because I was willing to see the film just for what he brought to his character? Absolutely. And that is not something I can say about many others.
Watching the 53-year-old actor in films was a lot of laughing, crying, being at the edge of my seat, invariably seeing Irrfan become Raj or Dev or Rana or Paan Singh Tomar, and emerging from the movie theatre finding the characters inextricable from the man who played them.
Irrfan had a lot of good cinema to give to the world. And his demise will be hard for the industry to recover from. I have a small comfort though. His last film, Angrezi Medium, was one I had been looking forward to watching, but hadn’t gotten around to. By some strange logic, I am glad I haven't. Because till I do, I can convince myself that there is a piece of Irrfan’s new cinema still left in the world, that I will have the joy of discovering.
Views expressed are author's own.