The wife of acclaimed actor Irrfan Khan, who died in Mumbai on April 29 after a prolonged battle with cancer, posted an emotional note on Friday morning about how her husband had touched so many lives and how “he had spoiled her for life”.
In an intimate statement, Sutapa Sikdar spoke about how “the uninvited guests” in Khan’s life — cancer — had ravaged their lives but how they managed to find harmony in that chaos.
“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,” said Sikdar in a statement.
Khan and Sikdar met while studying at the National School of Drama as young adults and fell in love. They have two sons.
“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,” Sikdar said.
She described their life together as a masterclass in acting and how they managed to make sense of the doctor’s reports, which became the script of their lives. She thanked the team of doctors who made Khan’s experience with cancer more bearable.
“I find this 2 and 1/2 years to have been an interlude, which had its 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’ [don’t go there, turn here] 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,” she said.
Khan had taught them life lessons that they will never forget.
“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’.”
