Irrfan and Rishi - Part II

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK and works in Islamabad.

How do I distinguish between good, very good, and excellent movies? Well, my definition is simple: if you watch a movie that keeps you engaged for the entire length and you don’t regret wasting your time, it is a good movie. If you want to watch that movie a second time, and still like it, then it is a very good movie.

A movie is excellent if you want to watch it again and again and still enjoy it; then it is like a masterpiece. The same I apply to nearly all creative arts. If you read a novel or short story once and it keeps you engaged its entire length, it is good; if you want to read it twice, it is very good; if you still want to go through it again and again, it is excellent – a masterpiece. But it is not that simple, after all. A good piece of art has a local appeal; a very good one may go beyond borders and people in the region like it. But excellent artworks invariably have universal appeal.

Then comes the time factor. An excellent work has a timeless dimension; such work is appreciated across decades and even centuries by critics who have read and seen a lot. Now if it goes beyond a temporary popular appeal that makes a bestseller or a blockbuster. If I apply these simple criteria to Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor, I realize that Rishi in nearly 50 years of his work and out of around 150 roles, acted in dozens of good movies, a few very good ones and only a couple that I can rate as excellent to watch repeatedly.

Irrfan was able to show a much better repertoire of excellent ones in a much shorter time, and in a more hostile, or at least unwelcoming environment. He had to pave his own way with his own blood and sweat. Irrfan had no family background to support him, no plenty of means to fall back on, and had to go through at least 15 years of harsh struggle before he could land major roles. He proved himself to be one of the finest actors of all time, with a universal appeal, and gave excellent performances that you can watch again and again.

Irrfan could become a critically acclaimed artiste. If Rishi Kapoor was a film star of blockbusters, Irrfan was an actor par excellence. Irrfan could not claim commercial success of equal proportions with Rishis’s ‘Bobby’ or ‘Laila Majnoon’, but he could display his finesse in subtle ways not normally found in commercial cinema. Being 15 years younger to Rishi, Irrfan was still at the National School of Drama when Rishi had scored half a century of his movies by the mid-1980s. Perhaps it was the sheer number of movies that prevented Rishi from performing more nuanced roles, as Irrfan could do later.

The TV play ‘Shrikant’ was Irrfan’s first major role, it was a good play, you may watch it online if you are interested in Bengali literature and want to see more from the writer of ‘Devdas’, Sarat Chandar Chatterjee. After graduating in acting, Irrfan could get a role in Mira Nair’s ‘Salaam Bombay’ (1988) but failed to impress her much and she cut his role to nearly zilch. TV plays followed with different roles, such as he played the character of famous Urdu poet Makhdoom Mohiuddin in Ali Sardar Jafri’s TV serial on eminent Urdu poets in 1991. The serial by Jafri was a poor production.

Then for over a decade, Irrfan was stuck at TV without being able to get a substantial role in film. Indian directors noticed him when he got a major role from a London-based director Asif Kapadia in his film ‘The Warrior’ (2001). The film won a Bafta Award for best film and Irrfan was propelled to stardom. His next major and most impressive performance was in the Indian film ‘Haasil’ (2003). The film was an average production about student politics and violence, but thanks to his brilliant performance Irfan won his first Filmfare Award. Now he was an acting force to reckon with.

Then Mira Nair compensated for her injustice to Irrfan in ‘Salaam Bombay’ by giving him the lead role in her international production, ‘The Namesake’ (2006). Based on a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, the film won numerous national and international awards for Irrfan Khan, Tabu, and Mira Nair. The next two films in 2007, established Irrfan’s as an accomplished actor. ‘Life in a Metro’ and ‘A Mighty Heart’ both can be watched more than once, especially ‘Life in a Metro’ which is a gem of a movie. In ‘A Mighty Heart’ he stood his ground in front of Angelina Jolie.

In 2008, another Oscar winner, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, directed by Danny Boyle and based on a novel by Vikas Swarup, cemented Irrfan’s reputation as an internationally acclaimed film actor. In 2009, ‘Billu’ came up as a light comedy in which Irrfan plays a barber who claims to be friends with Shahrukh Khan; you can watch it once and enjoy. And then in 2012 he gave two of his best performances in the biopic ‘Paan Singh Tomar’ and again in a multiple Oscar winner ‘Life of Pi’.

‘Paan Singh Tomar’ is definitely a masterpiece that you can watch multiple times. It is the real-life story of an athlete who wins international medals for his country but is then discredited, insulted, and even maltreated when he goes back to his village after retirement. His land is illegally occupied and the police are corrupt to the core, and make fun of him when he says that he was a national athletic hero just a few years back. When his and his family’s lives are in anger and his mother is killed, he runs for his life and becomes a notorious bandit. Irrfan’s performance won him many awards including his second Filmfare.

‘The Lunchbox’ (2013), ‘Haider’ (2014), ‘Piku’ (2015), ‘Hindi Medium’ (2017), have critically acclaimed performances by Irrfan. ‘The Lunchbox’ is a great movie by all counts and Irrfan garnered a couple of national and international awards for his acting. ‘Haider’ is about Kashmir and its freedom struggle. ‘Piku’ is a movie about an old man who becomes a nuisance for his daughter who takes care of him. Irrfan’s acting is on a par, if not better, than Amitabh’s. ‘Hindi Medium’ is a brilliant satire on the struggle of lower and middle classes to be accepted among the elite in society.

By the way, our own Saba Qamar also gives a stellar performance as Irrfan’s wife who constantly nags her husband to improve his spellings and change his mannerism to impress the rich and the wealthy. ‘Hindi Medium’ is a bit too long and drags in the last half hour, but the beautiful acting by Irrfan and Saba make this movie worth a watch. His last movie ‘Angrezi Medium’ I have not been able to watch and it will be sad to see him emaciated by cancer that ultimately took him away, just at the age of 53. His last letter to the world reads:

“I had been in a different game, I was travelling on a speedy train ride, had dreams, plans, aspirations, goals, was fully engaged in them. And suddenly someone taps on my shoulder and I turn to see. It’s the TC: ‘Your destination is about to come. Please get down.’ I am confused: No, no. My destination hasn’t come. No, this is it. This is how it is sometimes.

“The suddenness made me realise how you are just a cork floating in the ocean with unpredictable currents! And you are desperately trying to control it. In this chaos, shocked, afraid and in panic, while on one of the terrifying hospital visits, I blabber to my son, ‘The only thing I expect from ME is not to face this crisis in this present state. I desperately need my feet. Fear and panic should not overrule me and make me miserable’.”

Concluded

Email: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk