Acclaimed actor Irrfan’s passing left a deep void in the hearts of his fans. As the Bollywood fraternity, his family, friends, fans and the entire country mourned the loss of one of India’s finest actors, Mumbai-based artist Ranjit Dahiya paid a fitting and artistic tribute to Irrfan with a huge mural. The actor’s wall mural was painted by the artist in the bylanes of Waroda Road, Bandra as a tribute to artist’s ‘favourite star’.
The wall painting mixed with black, yellow and white is a life-size close-up shot of the late actor trademarked with his five o’clock shadow and piercing eyes. Speaking to a news agency, Dahiya said that the news of the seasoned actor’s demise initiated him to do the wall painting. He said, “When I came to know the sad demise of my favourite actor Irrfan khan, I wanted to give tribute to him. It took me three days to complete this wall painting. I am still working on it. It's a small tribute to my favourite actor Irrfan Khan.” He further added and said that he wanted to focus more on Irrfan’s eyes “which were loved by his fans.”
Talking about Irrfan and the painting, Dahiya said, “We knew he was ill but we thought it was being played up by the media because Khan was so young. Next thing you know he was dead. It was hardly believable because he was so young. We were so moved by the news that we immediately started looking for a photograph that best captured his personality. We went through movie stills and photographs of him on the red carpet till we came across this photograph. You could almost feel him gazing out of the photograph and so we decided to paint the mural based on it.”
Maharashtra: Artist Ranjit Dahiya paints a mural of actor Irrfan Khan, who recently passed away, on the wall of a house in Bandra,Mumbai.He says, "Khan was one of my favorite actors so I decided to pay him tribute by painting his mural. I've been working on it since last 3 days". pic.twitter.com/UGcWeEzM9V
— ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2020
Irrfan passed away due to a colon infection in Mumbai on April 29, 2020. He was battling a rare cancer as well. He was only 53 years old.
(Source: Conde Nast Traveller/Instagram/ANI)