Irrfan Khan, a beloved figure in the Indian film industry, left an indelible mark with his exceptional acting and charming personality. While his memory lives on, Irrfan Khan’s wife Sutapa Sikdar often talks about her special bond with the late actor and shares anecdotes from his life. Following that trajectory, Sutapa revealed in her recent interview that Irrfan Khan wanted to make his segue into direction, after he got tired of doing TV.
As quoted by ETimes, Sutapa Sikdar shared that she was writing a show titled ‘Janam Samjha Karo’ that was slated to be directed by Irrfan Khan almost two decades back. However, the show got shelved,”The show was based on a story of four couples who get pregnant together and was called ‘pathbreaking’ at the channel party in Delhi. We had been flown down for the event and the show had been commissioned by the channel. A month later, we were informed that the channel’s strategy had changed after another show with a conventional storyline found huge success. That was the turning point in my professional life as a writer, and I decided to leave TV. I realised that you get TRPs when you create stereotypes rather than characters. Irrfan got tired of acting in TV shows and decided to direct a show himself.”
Irrfan Khan and Sutapa Sikdar were one of the lesser-known couples in Bollywood. The duo who tied the knots in February 1995 were quite discreet about their married life. Recently, Sutapa expressed her desire to write a book that’ll be aimed to delve deep into the humourous side of Irrfan Khan.
Last year, at the book launch of film critic Shubhra Gupta’s book on the Angrezi Medium actor, Sutapa told PTI, “I want to write a book on Irrfan but I don’t want it to be a sentimental journey. I want it to be a funny journey, which I shared with him. People take him as a very intimidating and very serious kind of person but he was not in real life. The book is not ready at all (but it will be ready) sometime.”
Sutapa also recalled that Irrfan Khan was quite particular about the intention behind telling a particular story. She explained that while Irrfan Khan was not big on his religion, he used to emphasize the word niyat. She shared, “He was not a practising Muslim but one word he strongly caught in Islam was ‘niyat’. So ‘niyat’ was so strong in his personality and in life. Like, what is our intention in telling the story? It has to be transparent and honest, and that was foremost for him.”
She added, “In a film script, (the story) can’t be preachy. It has to be entertaining, people must get entertained but at the same time, the intention should be there.”
Sutapa Sikdar pursued acting alongside Irrfan Khan at NSD(National School Of Drama) Eventually, she made her foray as a film producer, dialogue writer, and screenplay writer. She went on to produce Irrfan Khan starrers like Madari and Qarib Qarib Single. She was also popular for writing dialogues for critically acclaimed films like Supari and Kahaani.
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