Sutapa Sikdar says she ‘ragged’ Irrfan Khan at NSD: ‘He was so angry, honesty was very important to him’

Sutapa further revealed that he had respectfully asked her directions using words like ‘suniye‘ and ‘aap‘ and she sent him somewhere completely different. She recalled how he was upset when she tried to dissuade him from the course. He also was angry at her as honesty meant a lot to Irrfan.

“When I met him, I asked him, ‘Tumhe kyu lagta hai tumhara yaha ho jaega (why do you think you will get through?’ He said, ‘Humne bhi natak kiye hai‘ (even I have done theatre). Then he politely asked me, ‘Apko lagta hai mera nahi hoga? (why do you think I would fail?)’. Later, he saw me writing the second exam with him too. He was so angry because honesty to him was very important. For me, it was a very frivolous thing, like taking panga. But for him, it was more about the dishonesty. He told me, ‘Tum to third year ki ho hi nahi (You are not from the third year)’. So I replied, “I didn’t say anything, you only believed I am in the third year.”

 

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Sutapa Sikdar, who is also an acclaimed writer opened up about how Irrfan picked his scripts. She shared how the actor always wanted the story to be ‘entertaining and not preachy’. “There were times when I would read the script and say, ‘It is very boring’. Or at times, he would remark, ‘This script is very bad’,” she said, with much fondness.

The writer also revealed how Irrfan was approached for Raat Akeli Hai, the Netflix film which starred Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the lead role. She said that while he didn’t call the film ‘bad’ he didn’t find anything new about it. She said that he finally didn’t do it because he was unwell. However, Sutapa liked the script but shared how they saw different things in a same script.

“I loved the script. It is written by a female writer. I thought it was amazing for a female writer to write (it). I liked the script. I kept asking him, ‘What is it that you don’t like?’. He said he liked the core of it but he also added ‘Mujhe boring lag rahi hai kahin kahin pe.’ He was very particular about the whole script. He did look at his role too but it was important for him to see how the whole film was,” Sutapa Sikdar shared.

Irrfan Khan: A Life in Movies, written by Shubhra Gupta and published by Pan Macmillan India, was launched on Saturday in Mumbai. The book offers a compelling account of his life, starting from his days at the National School of Drama to his illustrious career in films and television, spanning industries.