Corks in the Ocean
By: वर ण
Tags: Bollywood, Cinema, Acting, Irrfan Khan, Movies

Originally written for Children’s magazine Cycle, (August-September Issue, 2020) published by Ektara. Article edited by Shashi Sablok.

2005

On good days, Mumbai is difficult. And on bad ones, nearly impossible. Especially when you are new & knocking on concrete walls with bruised knuckles, hoping to find a crack to enter the film industry. The pace of the city, the monumentally disorganized industry, and the habitually complex people inhabiting it create a frustrating puzzle with pieces missing. As is the norm in our country, if you are inclined towards a life in arts, there’s a huge chance that you have arrived in this city after fighting with or being disowned by your family. It shapes individuals through molds of insecurity, ego, and haste. That’s another reason that communication between established people and newcomers in this industry is broken or difficult. It’s like two complex life forms from two different planets trying to reach a consensus on an optical illusion problem.

It was in such a confused state in 2005 when I was strolling with my fellow-confused friend and co-writer Rahul Patel in Inorbit Mall (Malad, Mumbai) in early 2005. I had been in Mumbai for a year or so by then and still figuring things. Me and Rahul would watch Tuesday morning shows of latest releases because the tickets were cheap and seats were empty. Even though we had scored a writing gig as ghost-writers for a TV show, the survival was a struggle and we’d spend every penny after elaborate mental calculations. Likemost new writers, we also had 4–5 scripts in our head (within a couple of years, most of those ideas revealed themselves to be trash) and our weeks were spent in trying to find & meet directors, producers, or actors who would be interested in any of them. But the leads we used to get were few and mostly unreliable.

We had just stepped out of the movie when we spotted Irrfan in the mall. Probably he had also stepped out of the same screening. By that time, he had had only two prominent film releases in the leading role — Vishal Bharadwaj’s Maqbool (2003)and Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Haasil (2003). Both had fared below-average at the box office but managed to create strong tremors on the movie-buff planet. Though very few would have recognized him in that mall on that day, for me and Rahul he was a rockstar.

Irrfan had graduated from NSD in 1987 and landed some memorable roles in pre-satellite and early-satellite TV with Chandrakanta, Kehkashaan, and Star Bestesellers. But an actor’s journey in this city is long. His first internationally-acclaimed performance came with Mira Nair’s The Namesake in 2006 and the first leading role in a commercial success in India with Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Paan Singh Tomar in 2012 — a full 25-years after graduating with merit from India’s premier acting school. I keep wondering what keeps an artist simmering for this long, waiting endless years to create fictional tales of imaginary people, screened in dark halls for strangers with diminishing attention spans and a disproportionate power to reject the entire effort with a casual but heartbreaking ‘maza nahin aaya’. It just can’t be the lust for fame or money or even commitment to ‘art’. There has to be a deeper, much more nuanced reason at play here. A search for something resembling truth maybe.

As he was about to enter an elevator, Rahul and I approached him nervously. We told him that we are aspiring to be writers and love his work and intensity. He listened patiently and expressed surprise that we had seen Maqbool and Haasil. We told him we have a few stories we would like to narrate to him. He immediately shared his number and said call whenever you are ready. We didn’t have anything meaningful/utilitarian to ask further but, like fanboys, we wanted to continue chatting. Rahul had seen in American films that if you wanted somebody’s time, the polite way to say it is — ‘Can I buy you a coffee?’ Maybe Irrfan had also not seen these American films because when Rahul said this, both Irrfan and I were a bit taken aback. He said ‘Arre why would you guys buy me a coffee? I will buy you a coffee.’

We sat in a coffee shop in the mall but none of us ordered anything. The thought of who’d buy whom the coffee probably created an awkwardness. We chatted for five-seven minutes only — and I don’t even remember what it was about.

But what I clearly remember and would never forget is how an artist treated us inexperienced kids like fellow artists by giving us time, respect, and a space to be awkward.

2012

This was not even a meeting but a phone conversation. I had written lyrics for Vasan Bala’s Peddlers (2012). It was only my second film as a lyricist — a film made by debutant director, actors, editor, cinematographer, and composer. This was the year Paan Singh Tomar had arrived and Irrfan had established himself as one of the powerhouse actors of Hindi cinema. In the last 6-years, his status had grown tremendously and now it was impossible to spot him strolling in a mall on a Tuesday morning.

Peddlers had premiered at Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week section in 2012 but like most other indie films made in India, it was on the verge of never seeing the light of day, getting lost forever in the scary, brutal machinery of film distribution. My own rough calculations & observations over the years indicate that for every hundred films written & greenlit, by any kind of producer/development team, only one manages to get a theatrical release. And for every hundred films released in theatres, probably only one manages to make any kind of artistic or commercial impact on the film eco-system. So, in a way, only one out of every 10,000 potential films are lucky enough to carve a space in viewers’ minds. As I said already, Mumbai is a tough city on good days.

The film’s festival run was over, 2012 was ending, and though it was still too early to say but Peddlers looked set for a long struggle. (As it happens, the film hasn’t released yet.) Vasan Bala, the director of the film, was trying all options — showing the film to anybody who could put in a word somewhere and help open a door.

One day in November or December 2012, without any prior contact, I got a call from Irrfan. He had recently seen Peddlers at one of the private screenings and called me to tell that he had liked the lyrics of a song (‘Chidiya mein jaise ambar, machhli mein jaise paani’) in the film. He was curious why I wrote those words, what kind of Hindi literature I read growing up, and which cities I had lived in. Six-eight lines in a song from a film forgotten by the city had prompted him to make that call and spend time understanding my process, my entire life even.

I also had many questions — about his life & art — but I couldn’t ask any in my nervous excitement. Though later I realized his questions itself were portals enough to understand him.

Acting is unique in the sense that it’s one of those rare art forms that produce something intangible. Not only this, there is no separation possible between the art and the artist when it comes to actors. A painting one can touch, a piece of writing can be published, music one can tape & preserve but actors’ art pieces are the actors themselves. So to understand this art, understanding the artist is the only way.

I told him we once met in a mall and he had given us young writers so much respect that day, like he’s doing now with this call. He promised next time we met, he would definitely buy me a coffee.

I was in a bit of a daze long after the call was over. It’s so rare that an actor calls a fellow artist to discuss poetry in a film song. But that’s what set him apart maybe. He had questions. When you see him on screen — in scenes when he’s not speaking — he looks like debating philosophical questions in his mind. And that hint of a smile sometimes, as if he has un-knotted a new theory.

There’s a (much-celebrated) scene in Mira Nair’s The Namesake– Irrfan’s character Ashoke Ganguli visits a serene, deserted sea beach in America with his 4-year old son Gogol and wife Ashima (Tabu) holding their newborn daughter. Ashoke and Ashima have recently moved to USA and have a sense of wonder about every new experience. Ashima stays close to the car on the beach while Ashoke takes Gogol closer to the water, walking on a long jetty. It’s a magical view as waves rise and fall and both Ashoke and Gogol look overwhelmed by the experience. Only after walking a long distance Ashoke realizes they forgot to bring the camera along. He turns back and looks at Ashima standing far away, so far that he can’t even speak to her, and gestures with his hand to indicate that he has forgotten the camera with her. He wonders aloud, in mild frustration, that how will they capture this magical moment now. Since Ashima is so far and words can’t reach her, she misunderstands the hand-gesture as a wave to say ‘hello’. She responds by raising her own hand and waving it. And here, Irrfan’s brilliance can be seen in what definitely is an unrehearsed gesture. The same hand Ashoke was waving to indicate the forgotten camera, in a fluid unbroken movement, turns into a hand-wave responding to Ashima’s hand-wave. A sensitive man, in that very short moment, decides to let go of the disappointment and focus on what he has. He bends down and lovingly tells Gogol “Ki Kori, we just have to remember it then. Will you remember this day Gogol?” Gogol asks ‘How long do I have to remember it.” He smiles — the smile of a man who loves questions — and says ‘Aah, remember it always.”

On that day on the phone, Irrfan didn’t tell me to remember anything. But Ashoke Ganguli-r Deebbi, I will remember always.

Illustration: Allen Shaw (Originally made for Cycle Magazine)

2013

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Canada had two Irrfan films in 2013 lineup — Anup Singh’s Qissa and Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox. I was at TIFF that year with one of my scripts for a script lab conducted by NFDC. Post the screening, The Lunchbox team threw a party for friends and industry at a local restaurant. It was supposed to be a dinner party but as per Canadian tradition of early dinner, the timing was 5–7 pm.

Some of us delegates from the script lab also gate-crashed this party. Irrfan’s stature had risen further in the last few months with The Lunchbox turning out to be a grand success internationally.

And still, when I arrived at the party — I found him sitting silently in a corner, as if meditating with eyes open. By then he had traveled the world and did enough heavy-weight international cinema (including Ang Lee’s Life of Pi) that it would be stupid to imagine that he was awkward because of the setting and strangers around him. And still, a small voice in my mind wanted me to believe a fiction. Was the once cricket-enthusiast from Tonk, a non-descript town in Rajasthan, suddenly realizing how far he has come from those dusty grounds to this lavender-smelling café in Toronto serving fusion food & strange cocktails to celebrate his film?

I approached him gently and informed that he had called last year after listening to a song. He said if I have any interesting scripts, he’d love to listen. I promised I would love to narrate when I have something but at this point, nothing to match his caliber. He segued without any segue into the idea he was most interested in at that time. ‘Have you thought about Mughal-e-Azam? K. Asif’s life?’, he asked. I said I haven’t really. He said he would love to play K. Asif in a film about that man’s journey with Mughal-e-Azam (1960). His till-now bored demeanor changed and he passionately talked about his love for the film. He said it’s unfortunate that not much proper documentation exists of those times and very little research done on how K. Asif spent a decade or more making it. I asked him what attracts him the most in this story and he said almost immediately — ‘Fanaa ho jaana. (To get destroyed.) How a man worked tirelessly for fifteen years on a film, obsessing about every minor detail of its production — as if he’s not making a film but assembling his own broken life.’ And it’s true that K. Asif eroded himself in making this film. He had made one film before Mughal-e-Azamand nothing after it. (Except an unfinished project.)

This opened a new window for me to understand Irrfan. He metaphorically equated mastering an art with getting completely immersed in it, getting destroyed even. Like the great Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi (who died young at 36, leaving a stunning body of work behind) said in an interview — ‘Life is a slow suicide’. Every passing moment brings us a step closer to the end — and that’s the greatest truth of our existence. I have seen very few artists talk comfortably about death — and it’s generally a sign of their comfort with their own being.

I did spend some time researching K. Asif after this meeting — and sent Irrfan a few rare photos and anecdotes I found about his life. But I could never fully commit to this story and then the winds of life pushed my raft away from Irrfan’s ocean liner.

2019

This meeting also happened virtually. The news of his illness in 2018 made a fog of sadness descend on his admirers and friends around the world. It was the same year his biggest commercial success yet, Hindi Medium (2017), had won various awards. He was not just an actor of art or international films anymore but a bona fide star in Hindi cinema universe too.

In the meantime, I had written a song for his film Qarib Qarib Singlle (2017, Directed by Tanuja Chandra) and had a direct access to him in a way. But I didn’t find the courage to talk to him. I sent my emotional messages of love on phone and email — and was silently waiting for a miracle.

Even in such tough times, he didn’t hide his illness from the world nor let it weigh heavy on himself. In fact, he took it as an opportunity to live life even more liberally and question more deeply. He wrote a letter from his hospital in London that revealed not just his strength of character but sense of wonder too.

“And then the pain hit. As if all this while, you were just getting to know pain, and now you know his nature and his intensity.”

“The suddenness made me realise how you are just a cork floating in the ocean with unpredictable currents, desperately trying to control it.”

“Once, while standing on the balcony of my hospital room, the peculiarity jolted me. Between the game of life and death, there is just a road. On one side, a hospital, on the other, a stadium; as if one isn’t part of anything which might claim certainty — neither the hospital nor the stadium.”

“Each flower, twig, leaf which has come from the cumulative prayers fills me with wonder, happiness and curiosity — a realisation that the cork doesn’t need to control the current; that you are being gently rocked in the cradle of nature.”

After a year of treatment, he returned to Mumbai. For a while it looked like he had recovered. He even started shooting for a new film. I sent a message again on his phone — ‘Heard you are back in the city. Let me know what you feel like eating. I will cook and bring for you. Meetha ya namkeen, whatever you prefer.’ The context for this conversation was in the song I had written for Qarib Qarib Singlle. The song was about his character’s love for food in the film (‘Bair karaawe mandir masjid, mel karaawe daana-paani’) — and during the music discussions, we talked a lot about our favorite cuisines. He immediately replied to my message saying that he’s leaving for the shoot now but would be thrilled to do this once back.

But time didn’t favour us as he was soon back in London for another round of treatment after finishing the film. And yet again, he didn’t believe he was defeated. His family also confirmed in a letter after he was gone that he never felt bogged down — in fact, he treated the whole experience as a magical snippet of existence.

This is only my assumption — and it could be totally wrong — but I feel he treated the entire episode as the toughest method acting role of his life. If somebody had approached him with a script about a great actor braving a great illness, how the character in the script accepts it, understands it, moulds his being to open a new world of discoveries for the viewers — he’d have played the role in almost a similar fashion. With equanimity, curiosity, and grace.

An actor who loved picking complex locks — locks of strange doors nobody cared about before him — was given the most complicated, grandest lock by the randomness of nature. And he went about unlocking it with the dedication of his muse K. Asif.

When somebody goes, with them an entire dictionary disappears from this planet — the words only they knew, the phrases only they could deliver, the meanings only they had fully understood. And when the departed is an artist like Irrfan’s stature — then not just a dictionary but an entire collection of epics vanishes. Epics with ancient recipes to understand life. But it’s our good fortune that Irrfan has left behind as many epics as he took along.

I just wish I had fulfilled the promise of feeding home-cooked food to him. I just wish things were not this cruelly irreversible. But then, he had written in his note — “The cork doesn’t need to control the current.”

It’s difficult but I am learning to let go, Irrfan saab.