POPULAR movie actors Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor made unscripted exits this week in Mumbai, each succumbing to a stoic battle with cancer. The outpouring of grief from across the seas marked a catharsis not only for the loss on two consecutive days of the much-loved men, but also for the quickened waning of the idea of inclusion and diversity they symbolised and enacted in a range of roles. Kapoor (67) and Khan (53) cultivated different approaches to the cinema and both were capable of producing a surprise trick in their repertoire with disarming ease. Ideologically, they defied the narrow prism of cultural nationalism and struck an easy rapport with picky audiences in Pakistan.

Kapoor expressed this perspective early on in Henna, a cross-border love story he did with Zeba Bakhtiyar. Khan played one of his more memorable roles with Saba Qamar in Hindi Medium, a sharp comment on class snobbery injected into unsuspecting schoolchildren, a scourge that thrives in both India and Pakistan. Kapoor was a flamboyant hero, mostly, singing amazing songs and wooing young hearts. Khan hardly ever needed to sing in his movies. His expressive eyes, cultured voice and body language did the work for him. Khan benefited greatly from rigorous training at Delhi’s National School of Drama, the iconic theatre institution that has produced actors of the calibre of Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri. Kapoor was born into a clan of movie legends, beginning with his grandfather Prithviraj Kapoor who started his career in the silent-era movies of the 1920s. Khan worked his way through a hard struggle, toggling between theatre and TV before embracing the tinsel town. His grooming in theatre spurred his cross-over with ease into Hollywood, where he was applauded for all-round acting abilities in well-regarded movies, including Life of Pi. Rishi Kapoor and Irrfan Khan have left a void at a time when the dreams and reveries they helped conjure for millions of fans were more needed than ever before.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2020