Irrfan Khan’s wife shares a heartfelt eulogy

Late Irrfan Khan’s wife and writer Sutapa Sikdar wrote a eulogy for her husband and shared it with fans on Twitter. Each and every word in the eulogy is excruciatingly painful and will leave you heart-wrenched. She started with how fans are taking Irrfan Khan’s demise as a personal loss.

The actor’s fans have grieved as much as his family members and the social media was literally filled with extremely heart touching posts soon after Irrfan’s death news. Irrfan is everyone’s favourite and we never saw any haters or someone who bad-mouthed about him. Unfortunately, he died young at the age of 53 after losing battle to cancer.

From Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman to celebrities from Bollywood and Tollywood, all have shared their pain on social media. Irrfan Khan met his wife first at the National School of drama 30 years back and they were in love, which was an inspiring pure form of a love story. Two days after his death, Sutapa wrote: “I have not lost, I have gained in every which way.” Her eulogy is worth reading and will make you understand what Irrfan actually is.

“How can I write this as a family statement when the whole world is taking it as a personal loss? How can I begin to feel alone when millions are grieving with us at the moment? I want to assure everyone that this is not a loss, it is a gain. It’s a gain of the things he taught us, and now we shall finally begin to truly implement it and evolve. Yet I want to try to fill in the things that people don’t already know.

It’s unbelievable for us but I would put it in Irrfan’s words, “it’s magical” whether he is there or not there, and that’s what he loved, he never loved one dimensional reality. The only thing I have a grudge against him is; he has spoiled me for life. His strive for perfection doesn’t let me settle for ordinary in any thing. There was a rhythm which he always saw in everything, even in cacophony and chaos, so I have learnt to sing and dance to the music of that rhythm, even with my tone-deaf voice and two left feet. Funnily, our life was a masterclass in acting, so when the dramatic entry of the “uninvited guests” happened, I had by then learnt, to see a harmony in the cacophony. The doctor’s reports were like scripts which I wanted to perfect, so I never miss any detail that he sought for in his performance.

We met some amazing people in this journey and the list is endless, but there are some whom I have to mention, our oncologist Dr Nitesh Rohtogi (Max Hospital, Saket) who held our hand in the beginning, Dr Dan Krell (UK), Dr Shidravi (UK), my heartbeat and my lantern in the dark Dr Sevanti Limaye (Kokilaben Hospital). It’s difficult to explain what a wondrous, beautiful, overwhelming, painful and exciting this journey has been. I find this two-and-a-half years to have been an interlude, which had it’s own beginning, middle and culmination with Irrfan helming the role of the orchestra conductor, separate from the 35 years of our companionship. Ours was not a marriage, it was a union.

I see my little family, in a boat, with both my sons Babil and Ayaan, paddling it forward, with Irrfan guiding them “wahan nahi, yahan se modo” but since life is not cinema and there are no retakes, I sincerely wish my children sail this boat safely with their father’s guidance in mind and rockabye through the storm.

I asked my children, if possible, they could sum up a lesson taught by their father that has been important to them;

Babil: ‘Learn to surrender to the dance of uncertainty and trust your faith in the universe”

Ayaan: “Learn to control your mind and to not let it control you.”

Tears will flow as we will plant a raat ki rani tree, his favourite, to the place where you have put him to rest after a victorious journey. It takes time but it will bloom and the fragrance will spread and touch all the souls whom I won’t call them fans but family for years to come.”