Irrfan’s Beautiful Heroines

Why did he have to go so soon? There was so much more to Irrfan Khan than meets the eye... and the sigh. A natural-born performer incapable of hamming Irrfan was first noticed as Dimple Kapadia’s jejune lover in Govind Nihalani’s Drishti. Shekhar Kapoor played Dimple’s cuckolded husband.

It was hard for Irrfan to imagine that the gorgeous Dimple would cheat on a husband like Shekhar for a fling with Irrfan. “That cinematic liberty for you,” he grinned.

That was his initiation into serenading beautiful actresses on screen, none more beautiful than Tabu whom Irrfan had a chance to work with more than once beginning with Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool.

He did extraordinary intense and passionate love-making scenes with Tabu in both Maqbool and The Namesake and was looking to complete his intense/passionate films with the actress. Alas , the films that Irrfan did with Tabu after Maqbool and The Namesake had no scope for any intimacy between them.In Ang Lee’s Life Of Pi Irrfan had not a single shot with Tabu .

Working with Deepkika Padukone was another experience that Irrfan cherished. The actor, never particular about the screen space, almost said no to Shoojit Sircar when he came with Piku .

“It was Bachchan Saab and Deepika’s story. My character seemed to be a hyphen between them,” Irrfan said. Luckily he accepted the role and gave the finest performance among the threesome. Irrfan loved spending time with the other beautiful lady in Piku , Moushumi Chatterjee.

Very few know Irrfan played the lead opposite the very attractive and successful Natalie Portman in a Gujju-Jew short film Kosher Vegetarian directed by Mira Nair. Irrfan and Natalie remained friends even after the shooting was over.

Irrfan worked with not one but two resplendent actresses in his last film The Song Of The Scorpions: the Iranian Golshifteh Farahani and our own Waheeda Rehman.

“This is the closest I’ve come to Guru Dutt,” Irrfan exulted while shooting with the ravishing Rehman.