When Tillotama Shome thinks of Irrfan Khan An excerpt from Shubhra Gupta’s Irrfan: A Life in Movies

Tillotama Shome, who made a striking debut in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding, would have been, in her own words, equally at home with her first love, academics. In Qissa, Shome plays Kanwar, a girl raised as a boy, and how that very singular upbringing impacts her father Umber, played magnificently by Irrfan. It is an unusual, challenging role befitting an unusual, challenging film.

Shome’s latest work includes sterling performances in Sir, an unusual story of love transcending class, and the hard-hitting crime thriller Delhi Crime 2.

Shubhra Gupta: Tell me about ‘Qissa’ and about working with Irrfan.

Tillotama Shome: Actually, we had done a film together before Qissa, called Shadows of Time. Haasil hadn’t happened. Irrfan’s success hadn’t happened. I was, as usual, reading some book between takes and not talking to people on set, and he kept trying to talk to me. He would come into the room and ask, ‘Achha, padh rahi ho kitaab?’ [Oh, you’re reading a book?] I would say yes and go back to my book, awkward and hoping that he wouldn’t ask again because I really didn’t want to talk to anyone. But he would come back again and again. You know, I was doing my master’s. Finally, he said, ‘Tumhari kitaabein toh khatam nahi hongi; baat toh kar hi nahi rahi ho. Toh jo mujhe karni thi, woh main kar hi leta hoon, kyunki mujhe nikalna hai. Mera shoot toh khatam hone wala hai kuchh dinon mein.’ [You are going to keep reading books; you are not talking to me at all. So I’ll just do what I have to, as I need to leave. My shoot is going to be over in a few days.] So I gave in and he said, ‘You just did Monsoon Wedding with Mira Nair. I saw it and I liked your work in it.’ I thanked him. Then he asked, ‘So will you tell Mira to work with me? Because it’s been many years. I got such a small part in Salaam Bombay! and then she had promised me she will work with me.’

I asked, ‘Kitne saal ho gaye?’ [How many years has it been?] ‘I don’t remember but it has been long.’ It was, I think, ten years since he had done Salaam Bombay!. I said, ‘Yaar, I don’t know what I can do. Main email deti hoon – yeh hai email.’ [Here is her email address.] Next day he told me that I had given him the wrong email address. I said it must have changed. I think I wrote to Mira later saying I met Irrfan and he really wants to work with you. I can’t even believe that it actually happened. I mean, they did The Namesake together!

Actor Tillotama Shome at the Zurich Film Festival, 2018.
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Then I saw Haasil while I was shooting for something up north. I was walking, saw a theatre and went in. I didn’t know what film was playing. I just wanted the experience of walking into a dark room and not knowing. It could be the worst film … and it was Haasil! I was like, this is the man I had met during that German film. And I didn’t speak to him! I had such a phenomenal opportunity, but at that time he was on a different trip and I was on a different trip. I wanted to study; I didn’t even know why I was doing movies.

And then I left for New York to study, and it so happened that The New York Times did an interview of The Namesake cast — an actual physical interview, at the Lincoln Center. There was Mira, Tabu and Irrfan. So this friend of mine said that he had tickets and I could join him and his wife. So we go there and the interview is going on and I can see the woman who was interviewing them slide in her chair whenever Irrfan would talk. It was as if she was going to fall off the chair! He can be really philosophical and deep, but that time he was being really normal. I could feel the magnetic pull this man had. Then the lights came on for the audience Q&A and he recognized me in that bheed [crowd]. He said, ‘Tillotama,’ into the mic, ‘is that you?’

Please remember that we never spoke much at all during Shadows of Time; it was that awkward interaction over ‘Please can you ask Mira to work with me?’ So he said, ‘Baal kaat diye tumne?’ [You’ve cut your hair?] What could I tell him — that I did cut it to save money. I was a student in New York. He said, ‘Baad mein na backstage aana; bhaag mat jaana.’ [Meet me backstage later; don’t run away.] After I went to meet him backstage, he looked at me and asked, ‘Film kaisi lagi?’ I told him when Tabu gets the call about her parent dying, it was such a moment for me. It had a huge impact. Actually, after watching the film, I had gone to my boss. I gave him my resignation and said that I want to go back home, to India. It was not just the film, of course, but it was the last straw. I think my romance with New York was just coming to an end. I knew I didn’t want to get a call about my parents and then sit on a sixteen-hour flight.

Tabu and Irrfan Khan in Mira Nair’s ‘The Namesake’ (2006.)

All those thoughts were in my head and I told him that Tabu just broke my heart in that scene. ‘Uska kaam achha laga, mera achha nahi laga?’ [You liked her work; you didn’t like mine?] ‘I didn’t say that!’ ‘Koi nahi,’ he said. ‘Agar achha nahi laga toh achha nahi laga. Waise tum kaisi ho?’ [No problem if you didn’t like it. How are you, by the way?] ‘Haan, theek hoon.’ ‘So your love affair with New York is over?’ he asked. And I just looked at him and said, ‘How do you know this about me? You’re not a close friend, you’re not somebody I keep in touch with.’ And he just looked at me.

You know, not too many people from middle-class families get a chance to study on a full scholarship and do what they want to do. On the surface, I looked fine, and he just saw through it. He said, ‘Chale aao, wapis aa jao.’ [Come back.] I was very taken aback by this man’s ability. I felt very uncomfortable. How did he see through this? I thought I’m glad I’m not going to meet him again.

And then I met him for Qissa. I was already feeling so vulnerable with just being in Bombay, being who I am and, by then, Irrfan was Irrfan, the great, celebrated actor who everybody wanted to work with. My part was so tough that in order to also enjoy playing it, one just had to do so much homework every day. I also had that incident in New York at the back of my mind. I felt like he could see through me.

Irrfan Khan and Tillotama Shome on the sets of ‘Qissa’ (2013).

But Anup [Singh] was really like our glue. The reason I got very close to Irrfan and Rasika [Dugal] was because of the kind of set-up Anup had created and the workshop that we went through. I don’t know if he told you about our rehearsal process. I had walked in late, because I was coming from my Kalari class, or my swimming class — I don’t know which one. Irrfan was waiting, knowing I was in some class. He said, ‘I just got so exhausted listening to how many things you’re learning for this film.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s really busy. Punjabi, then Kalari, then swimming and then driving.’ To which he said, ‘What were you doing all your life? You didn’t learn anything? How can you put so much pressure on yourself for one film?’

I was so taken aback – what a rude thing to say! I thought he’d say, ‘Wow, how sincere,’ like other people do. But I felt like he was teasing me. And I thought I had to fight back. So my relationship with him was always very tense and I never thought of him as a friend. I knew we were just colleagues. But I perceived that he was also charming me. And I wanted to fight back and to engage with him because, secretly, I felt he was accessing something which was very aspirational for me – the idea that I have, the notion of an artist, as some kind of conduit between worlds. There was something; I can’t explain it in words, Shubhra, which is why I find it very difficult to talk about Irrfan. But for me, he was a body, a medium, a vessel, and I felt that there were galaxies that he was communicating with.

SG: You said he was not a friend, but he saw you. Was he perceptive in ways that were deeper than other people?

TS: I’m beginning to understand him more now. When he was there, I was so busy fighting him. I understand when Anup says that it’s as if a song is playing in Irrfan’s head when he’s walking. Like, there’s a rhythm, you know? When I started trying that in my work in other films, I realized it can completely change a scene, depending on which song you have chosen to play in your head. It’s the same scene, same lines; now just switch the song that’s playing in your head, and everything changes. I have got a treasure chest of such things – it’s infinite. Irrfan is a gift that keeps giving.

Irrfan Khan and Radhika Madan in Homi Adajania’s ‘Angrezi Medium’ (2020).

We were shooting for Angrezi Medium, to which I said yes because of a scene with Irrfan. He had come back from his treatment and I wanted to meet him, I wanted to be in a room with him. My mum had already been diagnosed with cancer. He looked at me and said, ‘Something’s changed; you’re looking very happy.’ ‘I am very happy, Irrfan. It’s so nice seeing you.’ Then Homi [Adajania] came and talked about the scene. And again Irrfan asked, ‘Tell na, why? Kuchh toh badla hai since we met.’ I told him, ‘I am getting gigs – maybe it’s that.’ He said, ‘Arre, that’s very nice but I don’t think this is kaam-wala happiness.’ Then baat-baat mein, I said that Mumma has cancer. Then he was like, ‘Achha, no wonder.’ And we both started laughing. We didn’t have to say anything. I never talked about his disease but we just looked at each other and laughed a lot, and he said, ‘Everything’s changed, na?’

‘Yeah, everything’s changed. I don’t feel anything when I don’t get a job or when I walk away from a job. Everything’s changed.’ In that moment I felt, perhaps, like an equal, where I had a glimpse of what it feels like to have your brush with mortality and to dialogue with it that close. To then laugh and feel free of this industry and its standards of success and failure. How immaterial it all felt, ever since my mum was diagnosed. I could understand him in a way that I would perhaps have not been able to before.

SG: When you think of Irrfan, what is the one thing that comes to your mind?

TS: I think of a kite. There’s a thread that holds a kite between the sky and the earth. I’ve seen Irrfan fly a kite. I feel like they’re one and the same. Seeing Irrfan on a chhat, the kite fluttering, his lungi fluttering, you just feel like you’re part of something. When he’s there, there’s something so expansive and light.

Excerpted from ‘Irrfan: A Life in Movies’ by Shubhra Gupta (Macmillan, June 2023).