Mumbai: On his first death anniversary, late actor Irrfan Khan’s wife Sutapa Sikdar took to social media to pen down an emotional note celebrating the actor.
The note talks about the actor’s last night at the hospital and how she and her friend sang songs for him.
“People living deeply have no fear of death Anais 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,” she wrote.
She went on to talk about the time he passed away, which was so surreal as he was so interested the mystery of numbers.
“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 ‘hree 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,” she shared. Sutapa wrote about the emotional turmoil she went through when she had to change her name.
“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,” she wrote.
She, then, spoke about the day she met the actor for the first time.
“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 trackpant 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’.”
Sutapa concluded: “it’s been a long journey of correcting each other spanning a lifetime. 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 someone 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”
Irrfan had been diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer in 2018. He p’ssed away in Mumbai’s Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital on April 29 last year.