If you want to understand what made Irrfan Khan extraordinary, start not with his films but with a bus ticket he could not afford.
He was good enough at cricket to be selected for the CK Nayudu Trophy, a tournament seen as a stepping stone to first-class cricket in India. But he could not attend because he could not afford the travel expenses. So cricket lost him and cinema eventually found him, though not without years of struggle first.
He added an extra “r” to his name in 2012 simply because he liked the sound of it. He later dropped “Khan” entirely because he wanted his work, not his lineage, to define him. Both of those decisions, small as they seem, tell you everything about how deliberately he constructed his identity in an industry that rewards conformity.
Very few people know that he had dreamed of completing a romantic trilogy with Tabu after the deeply emotional chemistry they shared in Maqbool and The Namesake. He even requested director Vishal Bhardwaj for screen time with her in Haider, though the request was ultimately declined.
He also had a deep love for poetry and was particularly drawn to the work of Anaïs Nin for its emotional intensity and exploration of human psychology. This was not the profile of a typical Bollywood leading man, and that was entirely the point.
Then there is the detail that is almost impossible to sit with comfortably. His mother passed away three days before he did, and Irrfan could not attend her funeral in Jaipur because of the ongoing pandemic. He was lying in a Mumbai hospital, fighting a rare neuroendocrine tumour, while the world was locked down and his family was grieving 1,400 kilometres away.
He was admitted to Kokilaben hospital on April 28, 2020, and passed away the following morning at 11:11, a time and date that carries the symmetry of three elevens. Even his final hours had a quiet, almost literary precision.
He once said he did not want to be seen as only a serious actor. He wanted box office. But fortunately he got both. Just not long enough.
On April 28, we thought of the boy who could not afford a bus ticket and went on to make the whole world watch.