Monitoring Desk
Irrfan Khan, a versatile Bollywood actor died in the Western India city of Mumbai on Wednsday after fighting cancer for two years, according to media reports.
He was 54.
Khan was among the first Indian actors who were able to make mark in Western cinema.
He was born as Sahabzade Irfan Ali Khan in the western state of Rajasthan, in a conservative Muslim family .
Inspired by India’s vibrant cinema of the 1980s, young Irrfan Khan decided to make a career in the field and moved to the capital, New Delhi to study theatre.
He then moved to Mumbai in search of acting jobs, but the Bollywood films of the 1990s did not present opportunities to the actor.
Khan worked in serials for Indian television for about a decade and got some extra roles in films.
In 2001, as he was close to giving up, British filmmaker Asif Kapadia offered him the lead role in “The Warrior”. The film won a BAFTA for Best British Film and was Britain’s entry to the Oscars. It also opened the doors to Hollywood, which appreciated Khan long before Bollywood claimed him.
He went on to act in indie hits such as Mira Nair’s “The Namesake” based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s book as well as more popular fare, including “Jurassic World”.
In “The Namesake”, he won praise for his sensitive portrayal of a man who moves to the United States and grapples with the crises of identity that first-generation immigrants can face. The movie Slumdog Millionaire brought him the fame , he had always been struggling.
Khan acted in filmmaker Ritesh Batra’s debut, “The Lunchbox”. An intimate story about a cantankerous man and the woman who mistakenly sends him her husband’s lunch box one day, the film won worldwide acclaim, including in India.
In March 2018, Khan announced that he had been diagnosed with a neuroendrocrine tumour. He subsequently returned from London, where he was being treated, and shot a film “Angrezi Medium” (English Medium), which released in Indian cinemas last month.
Khan was absent during promotions and had not been seen in public since news of his diagnosis.
His mother Saeeda Begum , 95, died in her native town Jaipur in Rajasthan state last week but Irrfan Khan could not attend the funerals due to COVID-19 lockdown in India.
Khan has had a rough few years after being diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumour, which has required medical attention and kept the actor away from Bollywood for a duration.
He finally returned to films earlier this year, starring in Homi Adajania’s comedy, ‘Angrezi Medium’, which ran in cinemas for a few days before theatres closed across India and the UAE on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.
