Daily Times

Irrfan Khan took over the internet, earlier, this year in April, to disclose the ailment he was suffering from. Some newspapers reported that he was on his death bed while suffering from a ‘rare disease’, whereas others circulated rounds that he was undergoing treatment in the UK.

Keeping all the hypothesising aside, Irfan Khan decided to write an open letter about his illness to Bombay Times. Irrfan wrote, “It’s been quite some time now since I have been diagnosed with a high-grade neuroendocrine cancer. This new name in my vocabulary, I got to know, was rare, and due to fewer study cases, and less information comparatively, the unpredictability of the treatment was more. I was part of a trial-and-error game.”

Like all of us, Irrfan Khan had planned his life and had certain goals to achieve; however, after his diagnosis, he came to know about the uncertainty of life and how one isn’t “just a cork floating in the ocean with unpredictable currents.” He or she is desperately trying to control it, said Khan.

After his first visit to the hospital, he realised “between the game of life and the game of death, there is just a road.” He continued, “As I was entering the hospital, drained, exhausted, listless, I hardly realised my hospital was on the opposite side of Lord’s, the stadium. The Mecca of my childhood dream. Amidst the pain, I saw a poster of a smiling Vivian Richards. Nothing happened, as if that world didn’t ever belong to me.”

He further said, “This realisation made me submit, surrender and trust, irrespective of the outcome, irrespective of where this takes me, eight months from now, or four months from now, or two years. The concerns took a back seat and started to fade and kind of went out of my mindspace.”

After living this experience, Khan knew what ‘freedom’ actually meant; he felt as if he has seen and ‘tasted’ the magical side of life for the first time. “Time will tell if it stays, but that is how I feel as of now.”

While ending his letter, Irrfan acknowledged his well-wishers and said, “People I know, people I don’t even know. They were praying from different places, different time zones, and I feel all their prayers become ONE. One big force, like a force of current, which got inside me through the end of my spine, and has germinated through the crown of my head.”

We all wish for Irrfan Khan’s speedy recovery.

Published in Daily Times, June 21^st 2018.