Versatile actor Irrfan Khan no more

Padmashree Irrfan Khan breathed his last on April 29. The fighter had a war against colon infection since 2018, and lost it today. He had been admitted to the intensive care unit of Mumbai’s Kokilaben hospital on Tuesday. Khan is survived by his wife Sutapa Sikdar, and sons Babil and Ayan.

In March 2018, Khan revealed he had been diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumour, but after extensive treatment he recovered and was fit enough to shoot Angrezi Medium, the film which would turn out to be his last, and whose release this March was cut short because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Best known to his international audiences as the police inspector in Slumdog Millionaire, Khan was also a Bollywood mainstay, acting in hits such as Haider and Hindi Medium.

Khan born in Jaipur in 1966 took admission to drama school after failing as a cricketer. He struggled to make headway in the film industry, bagging a cast in Mira Nair’s 1988 Salaam Bombay; yet he only managed to find regular work in TV soap operas.

“I came into this industry to tell stories and do cinema and I was stuck in television,” he said in an interview in 2013.

Khan’s breakthrough role came from an unlikely source- the feature debut of British director Asif Kapadia, The Warrior was shot in India. Released in 2002, The Warrior went to be selected for the prestigious San Sebastian film festival and won the Bafta award for best British film.

Khan subsequently broke into mainstream Indian films, often playing cops or villains: including the title role of Maqbool, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth set in the Mumbai underworld. More orthodox Bollywood productions followed were Rog and the slice-of-life musical Life in a ... Metro.

Khan also maintained a parallel career in Anglo-American cinema: he played the chief of police in Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart, and another police man in the sensationally successful Slumdog Millionaire, which went on to win eight Oscars. Later, he went on to win hearts by starring in Hollywood films like; The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Jurassic World (2015) and Inferno (2016). In 2012 he also played the adult version of the lead character in another Oscar-winner: the Ang Lee-directed Life of Pi.

Meanwhile, Khan found box office success with the Indian-produced art film The Lunchbox. Khan also continued his high Bollywood profile with significant roles in the Amitabh Bachchan comedy Piku and Hindi Medium.  Apart from Padmashree, he won many awards and hearts too. His service to the entertainment industry will be remembered for ages to come