Irrfan, Mira Nair and Golshifteh

 

Irrfan, the great artist passed away. And you see all around mentions of his movies, especially 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑏𝑜𝑥, which went to Cannes, 𝑃𝑎𝑎𝑛 𝑆𝑖𝑛𝑔ℎ 𝑇𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑟 that earned him the national award, and even 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑃𝑖. However, the films that came to my mind were different, for personal reasons. One is 𝑆𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑎𝑚 𝐵𝑜𝑚𝑏𝑎𝑦 made in 1988 by Mira Nair which I didn’t see most mentioning. She is the director that discovered this gem of an actor for the Bollywood moviegoers. When he, in his late teens or barely out of them, approached her with his aspirations, she wanted to make him the major protagonist of the movie. However, it was a movie about slum children where the characters where children (who were real slum children) of a much younger age group and he wouldn’t fit in. She was sorry about it; she was desperate to have him in the movie somehow. So she offered him the minor role of a scribe stationed at the passageway in front of the shops who scribbled addresses for the illiterate people on their mail envelopes for a fee. A scene or two, I guess. However, many years later, she compensated for the bitterness by making him the lead character of her grand movie 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑎𝑘𝑒, a great work based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel by the same name. It was indeed one of the greatest adaptations that did full justice to the book. I listened to this Mira-Irrfan story in her own words when she addressed the audience after a screening of 𝑆𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑎𝑚 𝐵𝑜𝑚𝑏𝑎𝑦 years ago in Abu Dhabi. Around a decade later, I was so elated when I saw pictures and posters of Irrfan with the Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani. They were working on the new movie project, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑝𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠. I had always wanted Golshifteh to meet someone like him. He was meant for the globe, and so was she. I had known about him for years. And I had known about her for a few years too, since the time I watched the mesmerizing 𝐵𝑎𝑏 𝐴𝑧𝑖𝑧. But they never knew each other then. And when they met, a spark of magic worked instantly. Two great individuals, so transparent to each other. That’s all you need! The humane Irfan and the charming Golshifteh the maverick, the simple artist that can work magic with her silence, the ambassador for freedom and art, the humble musician, the genius, the bohemian, the outcast, whatnot… She lives in Paris from the time she was driven away from her home country by the mullahs. She said that with Irrfan, what she regained was family, of which she had lost all sense since she was seventeen. Not only the actors but the director and the entire crew of the movie made for an eclectic mix, a melting pot of cultures, from all over the world. Every individual belonged to two or three cultural backgrounds. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑝𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 is a Swiss-French-Singaporean movie made in the Hindi language, filmed in Rajasthan. Though the filming was completed and it was premiered in Switzerland, it is yet to be released to the public. Waiting for it to happen soon. The game’s not over. Let’s wait to see him, Irrfan, once again, posthumously…