Page 50 - Khabar Magazine (February 2020)

Biography

A still from The Lunchbox. (Courtesy: Guneet Monga) A still from D-Day. (Courtesy: Vivek Rangachari)

Rumor has it, you are on to your next one? for the next book.
Actually I’m taking it easy for a bit, prepar- Anyone we know?
ing for a film festival, promoting this book. I was in I’m not saying! I’m not giving away my ideas!
Kolkata recently for promotions, and I visited legendary
actor Soumitra Chatterjee and gave him a copy of my Baisakhi Roy is a Toronto-based writer and editor
book since I knew he is a fan of Irrfan’s work. He’s so who loves to write about ordinary people and their
down-to-earth and easygoing, still as charming as ever. extraordinary stories. A lifelong fan of Hindi movies, she
I also happened to visit Satyajit Ray’s home and met his cohosts KhabardaarPodcast, a weekly podcast on all
lovely family. But I am looking at some potential names things Bollywood.

Excerpt

“Directing Irrfan was like working with a friend.” – Mira Nair

“He could tell by looking at my face if I was happy otherwise serious role. “That brief touch cracked
or not with a shot,” she says. She remembers shoot- Ashoke’s dignified veneer,” Mira says. “It gave the audi-
ing one of the most beautiful scenes [in The Namesake] ence a sense of his vulnerability.”
when Ashoke and Gogol are in a car and the father Mira also has this observation about how Irrfan
explains the significance of Nikolai Gogol to his son. takes direction. “You talk to him and you notice a qui-
“He did that scene very nicely, but I was looking at him et moment, when he just reflects on what he has to
like a puppy after that,” she says. “And he asked, ‘Kuch become. It was not like fatak sey (instantaneously).
chahiye naa, tujhe (You need something else, right)?’ And There is always contemplation. He’s not winning
I said, ‘Haan, halka sa ankh mein ansoon, magar neeche nahi a popularity contest on the set. Tabu does it more
ana chaiye (Yes, a slight tear in your eye, but it should effortlessly on the surface. She doesn’t have any acting
not roll down your cheek).’ And he said, ‘Theek hai, Mira training and it’s amazing. Irrfan does it more quietly,
(All right, Mira).’ I usually don’t talk to actors like this but he never gets it wrong.”
to programme their tears, especially tears that don’t The Namesake shoot was the first time Irrfan visited
fall. And that’s the scene we have from the second take. the U.S. And Mira invited him to New York City during
That scene required fine-tuning. It looks effortless, but the prep time for the film and put him up in a hotel in
I am sure it wasn’t.” Times Square. “He was completely like Ashoke Ganguli.
At times Irrfan would also surprise Mira, like in He was like a beautiful child. ‘Main to study kar raha hoon
the scene when Gogol brings his girlfriend Maxine yaar (I am studying everything).’” Mira also felt leaving
(Jacinda Barrett) to meet his parents for the first time. Irrfan in the midst of Manhattan was helpful for him to
In one brief moment, the otherwise reserved and fairly get into the Ashoke Ganguli character. “We didn’t mol-
conservative Ashoke Ganguly gives an appreciative lycoddle him, inviting him over every day,” she says.
once-over look to Gogol’s American girlfriend. Sooni
had not written that in the script, and neither had Excerpted from Irrfan Khan: The Man, the Dreamer,
Mira discussed anything of this sort with Irrfan. So the Star with the permission of Rupa Publications India.
that was all Irrfan, improvising a little humour into his

48 • FEBRUARY• 2020 KHABAR MAGAZINE