Late Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan passed away on April 29, 2020 to a neuroendocrine tumour. His wife Sutapa Sikdar has penned emotional lines on his first death anniversary which shall leave one and all in tears.
People living deeply have no fear of death”… Anaïs Nin
your favourite poet Irrfan. Last year tonight me and my friends sang songs for you,all your favorite songs. The nurses were looking at us strangely as they were used to religious chants in critical times but I had overdone that for you irrfan morning evening and night for two years and since they told me it was time I wanted you to go with memories you loved …so we sang songs….next day you left for the next station I hope you knew where to get down without me..
363 days eight thousand seven hundred and twelve hours..when each second is counted .
how exactly does one swim this huge ocean of time. The clock had stopped
At 11.11 on 29th april for me .…irrfan you had a keen interest in mystery of numbers . .and funny you had three 11’s on your final day . some say actually many say this is a very mystical number 11/11/11.
How does one walk ahead the pandemic just adds to the anxiety, fear and pain.
The days went by with umpteen responsibilities some extremely new ones like signature galore for changing of name.
My fingers kept stopping on that how could I just take his name away and make it sutapa, I was unable to sign took a day off and the name game played on my mind.
Like a film in a projector . i remember sitting outside NSD late evening ..beautiful girls from kathak kendra floating out ..they were all very well dressed up unlike us we were always in our blue track pant and sky blue t shirt ..both boys and girls wore the same …and you mispronounced my name and I tried to correct and rubbed it in as usual my permanent thing that north Indians are so stupid and they only can pronounce sunny Vicky Rahul type names and proceed to kake ki dukaan in gol chakkar to have ek bata do chai ….its been a long journey of correcting each other spanning a life time. fighting arguing laughing evolving together.
you were the loner in a crowd. And now a whole crowd has followed you up there ..by the way OM from the tea stall in the nukkad went some years back has he made a chai ka stall up there? are you having ek bata do chai there. and are drinking water from the running streams?
All of you stay in peace remember us that we loved you, all of you. And remember all of you is missed by some one or the other ..all your families grieve ..may you all rest in peace! I hope there is enough space I hope some of you will forgive us for not been able to give a respectable cremation.#irrfan#NSD#nationbleeding#wearesorry#restinpeace
Their love story
Irrfan and Sutapa met as classmates in National School Of Drama (NSD) and fell in love. The two got married on February 23, 1995 and completing 25 years of marriage in Feb 2020.
In all these years, They met several highs and lows, both professionally and personally but faced them together with confidence.
Sutapa is a film dialogue writer and have many films to her credit including like Khamoshi, Shabd and Kahaani. She also turned producer with Madaari (2016) and Qarib Qarib Singlle (2017), both starring Irrfan in the lead.