My father was terrified for me: Babil when he told Irrfan about his acting dreams

New Delhi: His father never too far from his thoughts and words, Babil Khan says he always wanted to be a “performer” and was scared to admit it because frankly Irrfan Khan was “so great”. And after all, “father-son have this ego thing”.

The 26-year-old walking in the footsteps of his late father, amongst the few Indian actors whose talent was recognised not just at home but also in the west, has made his presence felt in the film 'Qala and the web series The Railway Men.

There were many detours along the way to a film career. Babil could well have been a sportsperson. But an injury put a full stop on those aspirations and he ended up pursuing a cinematography course from a university in the UK.

He said he was scared to tell his father that he wanted to get into the movies. "Because father-son have this ego thing... what if I fail because he was so great. But I finally admitted. And he was terrified for me because he knew how he had brought me up. I was a very sensitive child," Babil told PTI in an interview.

He said he now realises he loves cinematography but only as a hobby, just like photography. “My passion is performance. It could be acting, it could be music. Right now I'm a very shy singer. I would like to explore that after I do a little bit of acting." Irrfan was diagnosed with cancer while Babil was studying.

"I was going to come back from university and spend time with baba. I really didn't think that he would go, mama also thought he will recover 100 per cent,” Babil recalled in vivid detail about his father who died in April 2020.

“He beat his cancer and then he left.... He had to leave this world because chemo had destroyed his body. Cancer cells were zero but there was no immune system left. Just a simple infection took his life. He beat cancer so even that is a beautiful thing that he finished his last challenge.” April 2020 was just a month after India went into lockdown but that made little difference to the fans of the inimitable Irrfan.

“The streets were filled when his body was taken to the graveyard... I realised that this is not just my loss. As a family, we had given a note, we all wrote it together, and we said that it is not just our loss. It was a collective loss,” he said.

That’s when his social media engagement increased. It was also the only time he was completely open about his feelings.

“People would come and hug me and cry… I felt so close to people at the time. I felt a responsibility for the personal memories that I have with baba." As his popularity grew, Babil said he also started realising that there was a dark side to social media fame and that trolls can take a toll on your emotional well-being.

"My innocence started getting affected. I had to protect myself... So I stopped going on that platform." The actor said he would feel safe on social media because of the love people had for his father and he took the initial trolling when he became an actor in his stride.

A clip of him apologising to another guest at the red carpet last year was circulated widely and Babil was once again the target of massive trolling. Inevitably, his father’s name was dragged into the comments.

“I broke down because I thought that I had done this and his image was getting affected," Babil said, adding that his mother, Sutapa Sikdar, told him his father wouldn't have cared.

It was during the course of the making of Zee5's “Logout”, which releases on April 18, that he arrived at an understanding about why people are hateful to others on social media.

"I believe we have traded our self respect for external validation, for an image that is based on the opinions of others. And we have connected our identity with it, so now we constantly compare ourselves with others. And due to this, we are generating hatred for ourselves, which we project on others," he said.

Babil has a long term dream: bring the best actor Oscar to India. He also candidly said he doesn’t want to be completely tied up to one profession.

"Sometimes, we have already decided what we want to do in life. I'm just 26, I don't want to put pressure on myself by saying that I will do this for the rest of my life.

"(But) I want to bring the best actor Oscar trophy to India. I want to prove myself as an actor. Then I'd be able to take a step back from acting, explore music." In his debut film "Qala" in 2022, he played a talented classical musician. In "The Railway Men", he is a railway worker saving lives during the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. The 2023 film "Friday Night Plan" and now "Logout", where he is in the role of a social media influencer whose life spirals out when he loses his phone, are more in the young adult space.

Babil said unlike his "Logout" character, whose life revolves around social media and his phone, he is now more about offline connection with friends.

"My parents consciously kept me away from phones and technology... They didn't like the effect it had on other children. One thing baba told me and I didn't understand it then was this, 'You will grow distant from yourself if you don't stay away from these things'.

"I used to get upset back then but now I am grateful because my screen time is very less... I only listen to music on my phone and use the notes app," he said, recalling how his father once gave him his broken Blackberry when his peers were already using better phones.

It’s as if his father is still around, the memories just as vivid and the influence as profound.

Recalling his teen years with his parents, he likened the relationship to a chess game Irrfan would play just to know what his son was feeling.

“He was that concerned, he was that passionate about life and about parenthood, about every day. He used to say, feel the boredom. Sit and feel the boredom. If you are getting bored, then get bored for a while. What is the problem? Why are you in a hurry to do something?"