THE TIMELESS GIFTS OF ARTISTES WHO LEFT US THIS WEEK

The artistes who have left us have also left behind a sumptuous body of work

When you’ve been in the Bollywood trenches for more than two decades, everyone is at least a fleeting acquaintance. You get to know generations of families. You become part of the landscape. Professionally, I’ve always been the proverbial Trishanku — in limbo between being an insider and outsider. Many members of my family are in the business but I am a film critic and journalist, an observer who bears witness and records the shifting tides and tastes of a vastly unpredictable business.

Sometimes the tangled wires cross. This week, I struggled to make sense of the deaths of Irrfan and Rishi Kapoor. At Film Companion, the platform I lead, we put obits together. I wrote a piece about my memories of Rishi Sir, but it was impossible to be removed and dispassionate. My mother Kamna Chandra wrote two of his best loved films — Chandni and Prem Rog. Three years ago, my sister Tanuja Chandra directed the film, Qarib Qarib Singlle with Irrfan in the lead. I wasn’t just mourning the passing of two of Hindi cinema’s finest actors. The void I felt was far bigger than that.

I first met Rishi Sir when I was a teenager, in the early ’80s, on the sets of Prem Rog at RK Studio. He was a handsome, slightly intimidating Bollywood star who was unfailingly polite. I have distinct memories of watching Raj Kapoor direct him in a scene in a haveli.

As a journalist, I interviewed him several times over the years. One of my favourite conversations was a panel discussion I conducted for television, in which he participated along with Priyanka Chopra. At one point, she referred to herself as a brand. He immediately reprimanded her with: ‘My dear, you are an actor. You are not a brand.’

Irrfan didn’t mince words either. He spoke frankly about his long years of struggle in the film industry, waiting for phone calls that never came. In May 2015, we set up a conversation between him and Kangana Ranaut. It was a format without an interviewer in which two artists speak directly to each other as they might at a coffee shop. She told him that she was mesmerised by his work. At one point, he recollected how Mahesh Bhatt used to tell him to do ‘gandi acting’ and ‘spoon-feed the audience’. He said if he could change one

thing about the industry, it would be the moniker Bollywood. He found it regressive.

Both Rishi Sir and Irrfan made better every film they acted in. They vigorously strained against the boundaries of mainstream Hindi cinema, tweaking and pushing the rules. At the peak of his stardom as a leading man, Rishi Sir did films in which the heroine propelled the action—Prem Rog, Chandni and Damini. Irrfan’s presence was enough to alter the alchemy of a film — think of Piku without his wry gravitas or that unforgettable entry he made as Roohdaar in

Haider.

In March, I watched Irrfan’s last film,

Angrezi Medium, at a packed preview show, sitting next to his wife Sutapa Sikdar. We spoke about our children, who were away at university, and about travel restrictions and Covid-19. I take notes as I watch and I felt a little self-conscious doing it in her presence. But she was, as usual, warm and smiling.

The film’s script was too mangled but I said in my review that Irrfan is an actor to treasure. I added: “Watching him, as Marie Kondo would say, sparks joy and we can all use some of that.”

This week has been one of peculiar joylessness. But these artists leave behind a sumptuous body of work. And that is a gift that will keep on giving. May they rest in peace.

BOTH RISHI KAPOOR AND IRRFAN MADE BETTER EVERY FILM THEY ACTED IN. THEY VIGOROUSLY STRAINED AGAINST THE BOUNDARIES OF MAINSTREAM HINDI CINEMA, TWEAKING AND PUSHING THE RULES