Irrfan Khan’s career shows an impressively wide arc.  He played everything from a dacoit to a student  leader.  He has won awards and rewards galore which is why the world is mourning him after his untimely death last week. But the ace actor had one role that he craved to play – that was one of poet and lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi.

Irrfan Khan, say sources, had a strange and enduring fascination for Sahir Saab’s poetry and when he heard a film on the life of Sahir Ludhianvi was being planned by producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali, he was for  the  first time, openly covetous, for a part. “Only I can play Sahir Ludhianvi,”  Irrfan told me. “I have been researching on his life and poetry forever. I know the rarest of his songs.”

Do you know Sahir has written Mere dil mein aaj kya hai for Laxmikant-Pyarelal? I once asked him. Irrfan  had  the grace  to admit  he didn’t know. He was always very honest and didn’t mind sounding  ignorant if he  didn’t know. I don’t know why he  never got to play Sahir.  But I hope no one else does. Because both Irrfan’s and Sahir’s ghosts would have to be answerable to. A movie on Sahir Ludhianvi was being planned for a long while by different filmmakers but it has never come to fruition. 

Irrfan Khan passed away last week after losing the battle to cancer. Tributes have been pouring in from around the world for the late actor, indicating his greatness and popularity.