Actor extraordinaire, national-award winner, and above all a great human being, Irrfan Khan, breathed his last at a Mumbai hospital on Wednesday following a two-year-long battle with cancer. He was 54.
Irrfan Khan: The Man, The Dreamer, The Star, authored by Assem Chhabra, released in January 2020. The book looks at the life and work of the actor that begins in a small household in Rajasthan and culminates in his face gazing down from billboards in Hollywood.
Actor extraordinaire, national-award winner, and above all a great human being, Irrfan Khan, breathed his last at a Mumbai hospital on Wednesday following a two-year-long battle with cancer. He was 54.
Irrfan Khan: The Man, The Dreamer, The Star, authored by Aseem Chhabra, released in January 2020. The book looks at the life and work of the actor that begins in a small household in Rajasthan and culminates in his face gazing down from billboards in Hollywood.
Chhabra describes Irffan as "an actor whose eyes narrate a sea of stories".
Here's a Chapter, "Born To Be Maqbool", from the book.
After the moderate success of Makdee (2002), a children바카라s film, with Shabana Azmi playing a witch, Vishal Bhardwaj wanted to make a gangster film set in Bombay. He was searching for the story, and quite by chance, on a train ride from Dehradun to Delhi with his godson, Vishal asked the kid if he had anything to read. The kid handed Vishal Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. The book contained 20 stories, adapted from William Shakespeare바카라s plays. Vishal had not read or heard any of Shakespeare바카라s plays.
바카라The first story I read was Macbeth,바카라 Vishal told Seema Chisti at the Express Adda in Delhi.28 바카라And it was so good. Mere hosh udd gaye. Ki yeh kis tarah ki kahaani hai (I lost my sense of being. What kind of a story was this)?바카라 Until then Vishal thought literature was boring. In fact, while promoting Maqbool, he admitted that he was not acquainted with English literature at all.
Macbeth바카라s plot intrigued Vishal so much that he then got the play, read it again, and asked his Makdee co-writer Abbas Tyrewala to write a screenplay, transforming Macbeth into Maqbool. Shakespeare바카라s Scottish countryside transitioned into the inner city of Bombay from where a Don Corleone-like underworld king Jahangir Khan, aka Abbaji (Pankaj Kapur), rules his empire of illegal businesses and interests in the city바카라s Hindi film industry. He is well-served by his trusted lieutenant Maqbool (Irrfan Khan) who is having an affair with his boss바카라s mistress Nimmi (Tabu playing the character of Lady Macbeth). Vishal would later say that he was always fascinated by love triangles and the complications that arose from those plotlines, and so he decided his Lady Macbeth and Macbeth would not be married.
Initially, Vishal Bhardwaj offered Maqbool바카라s role to Kay Kay Menon, but he turned it down for a war drama with Amitabh Bachchan바카라Deewaar: Let바카라s Bring Our Heroes Home (2004).
That film vanished, and surely Kay Kay must have regretted his decision. Unclear about whom to cast as Maqbool, Vishal even talked to Kamal Haasan for that role. Naseeruddin Shah was already supposed to play one of the characters in the film. So Vishal told Naseer that he had talked to Kamal for the role of Maqbool. Naseer was livid. 바카라I said, 바카라Look, if you are talking to him, then I am out,바카라 he says.
After much thinking, Vishal decided to take a risk with Irrfan Khan, having seen him perform in Haasil. Irrfan would be the youngest NSD graduate in the cast, including other alumni바카라Naseer, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur and Piyush Mishra. In fact, towards the beginning of the film, there is a scene where all these actors are sitting in Abbaji바카라s living room. Irrfan was the juniormost of all, but now his time had finally come. He sat in the midst of all the senior actors with the confidence of a
veteran.
바카라That was a masterstroke,바카라 Naseer says about Irrfan바카라s casting. Before the shoot started, Naseer was offered Abbaji바카라s role, but he refused, since he felt he had played characters like that before. And then Vishal came up with the remarkable idea of casting Naseer and Om as two bumbling cops, always drawing up horoscopes of the film바카라s main characters.
The two inspectors 바카라 Purohit and Pandit 바카라 become the crucial three witches of the story.
Maqbool is a complex film with themes of loyalty, betrayal and guilt. Irrfan seemed concerned, as it was the first time he was doing a love story, and even then, it was not the conventional depiction of romance as one would see in most Hindi films.
It helped that Vishal arranged a two-week workshop. 바카라We all read out our parts,바카라 Irrfan said in an interview.29 바카라(That helped) develop a bond between all the characters, and the comfort level appears on screen.바카라 He added that Tabu also interacted with him, which surely helped him in shedding his inhibitions.
Irrfan could have gone into a lot of detail in defining Maqbool, but he felt that would have bored the audience. So he developed a method. 바카라I emphasized on some broad sentiments, taking a cue from what바카라s going to happen next in the script.
For instance, the sense of personal insecurity starts appearing on Maqbool바카라s face the moment Nimmi starts instigating him against his mentor, Abbaji. But definitely, I would not have played Macbeth this way on stage.바카라
Watching Irrfan in the role, one can only express surprise at the fact that this man had to wait so long to get such an important role. There is something so fresh and raw in his performance. But I also wonder if Irrfan would have been this compelling if he had acted in films for many years. In a way the hunger of the actor parallels the desperation of Maqbool to take over Abbaji바카라s empire and to introduce Nimmi to the world as his partner. Irrfan was born to play this role.
Irrfan is brilliant in just about every scene in the film. Right towards the beginning, we see Om Puri바카라s Inspector Pandit predict that in six months Maqbool will have
Abbaji바카라s seat. There is the initial moment of thrill, and a smile appears on Irrfan바카라s face.
After all, this is Maqbool바카라s true ambition. But Irrfan does not allow Maqbool to rejoice at that declaration for too long. In an instant, Irrfan바카라s face shows a change in his mood and he yells at the inspector, threatening to cut off his tongue. There are many such special moments throughout the film바카라 when Abbaji grabs Maqbool바카라s hand and he kisses it as tears appear in his eyes; or the jealousy and insecurity that appear on Maqbool바카라s face when he realizes Nimmi is sleeping with Abbaji one
afternoon. And then there is my ultimate Hindi cinema fanboy moment바카라the 바카라Tu Mere Ru Ba Ru Hai바카라 qawwali sequence where Tabu바카라s Nimmi is at her seductive best, as she walks to the dargah with Maqbool.
All the while we hear the haunting qawwali in Daler Mehndi바카라s voice. The choice of the singer was such a casting coup for Vishal Bhardwaj, who, as usual, was also the music composer of the film.
Naseeruddin Shah remembers some special scenes with Irrfan. Maqbool is responsible for Kaka바카라s (Piyush Mishra playing the Banquo character) death. When Kaka바카라s body is brought into the courtyard, his body is uncovered, and Maqbool imagines that his eyes are open. He is startled as if he has seen a ghost.
바카라In reaction to that, the way Irrfan fell over backwards, I tried to stop his fall,바카라 Naseer recalls. 바카라And he said, 바카라Kya, Naseer bhai? Kya kar rahe ho (What, Naseer bhai? What are you doing)?바카라 I said, 바카라Tum gir rahe they (You were falling).바카라 And he went, 바카라Nahi, nahi (No, no), I was acting.바카라 And I said, 바카라You are bloody good.바카라바카라
And then, towards the end, Naseer바카라s Inspector Purohit is in jail and Maqbool points a gun at him. 바카라I remember that scene well,바카라 Naseer says. 바카라The thing to remember is that he had the upper hand in that scene as a character. But not once did he gloat. Actors can바카라t resist gloating when they have the upper hand in a scene. I noticed Irrfan didn바카라t do that. This guy not only knows his onions but he바카라s a very generous actor as well.바카라
(Aseem Chhabra is the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed books, Shashi Kapoor: The Householder, the Star (2016) and Priyanka Chopra: The Incredible
Story of a Global Bollywood Star (2018)).