Irrfan Khan and Michael Robinson — Extra‘ordinary’ lives
Two deaths, a day apart, separated by 7,500km. On the surface, there’s nothing to link the two. One was an English footballer who spent more than half his life in Spain, who achieved more renown as a broadcaster than he did while winning the biggest trophies in the game one golden summer. The other was one of the greatest actors India has produced, someone who ploughed through years of struggle to essay roles that may never be forgotten. Though he was only 53 when he passed on, the word ‘legend’ was used freely while describing Irrfan Khan. It wasn’t hyperbole either.
Few would have used ‘legend’ to describe Michael Robinson the football player, though his post-retirement work on television and radio made him one of the faces of the game in Spain. That was reinforced by the many tributes from the great and good of Spanish football.
Both, however, are likely to be remembered for similar reasons. They epitomised every man, just in slightly different ways. Irrfan came to Bollywood from Jaipur, and there was no catalogue of roles waiting for him. He wasn’t physically remarkable, nor did he have Paul Newman’s face. He was precisely the kind of bloke you’d pass on the street without turning back for a second or third glance.
But what this every man could do was act like few others. And that, even in this age of acting schools, workshops and limitless movies online, is far from easy. About a fortnight ago, I watched a regional language film on Netflix, simply because the platform told me it was one of the most popular among Indian audiences. I don’t even have the words to tell you how appalling it was. Nearly three hours of my life wasted, as I carried on in vain for the twist that would redeem a script that my eight year old wouldn’t find plausible.
But forget the script. What really grated was the acting, or the absence of it. The men and women on screen spent their entire time hamming. It was like an awful spoof of the over-the-top theatrics that characterised south Indian cinema, and even Bollywood, in its earliest years.
It was so bad it made you yearn for an actor like Irrfan. I haven’t watched all his work, far from it, but what I did see was effortless. And as a great cricketer once told me, to make something seem natural is the hardest task of all. Apart from great screen presence, Irrfan had the rare ability to make you relate to his characters. He was your black-sheep cousin, the crazy uncle, or the chatty store owner down the road. Each role was so real, and in an age when streaming platforms deliver a surfeit of mediocrity along with some quality, that’s truly rare.
He did that while walking down unmapped paths. Rishi Kapoor, who sadly passed away earlier today, also possessed tremendous screen presence, but he had the good fortune of being born into Indian cinema’s first family. Irrfan didn’t have any legendary directors, actors or scriptwriters to champion his cause, and it was no coincidence that widespread acclaim only touched him once he was in his 40s.
Robinson was part of one of the greatest football teams. For one season, in 1983–84, he lived the dream of playing for Liverpool, the club he had supported as a boy growing up in the seaside town of Blackpool. He left the club with winners’ medals in both the League Championship and the European Cup, but spent his later years constantly downplaying his ability.
That was also the season I started to immerse myself in football. Before that, it had been a game we played on the school grounds, and something that piqued my curiosity whenever it was on television. But in ’83-’84, the seeds sown during the 1982 World Cup really started to sprout.
In that team for the ages, Robinson’s role was an auxiliary one. It didn’t help that the regular strike partnership was Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish — two of the most storied names in the history of British football. One a greyhound who scored 47 times that season, and the other a genius who could score and create the most remarkable goals.
When Robinson filled in, he didn’t let himself or the team down. He scored 13 goals, including six in the league, but if there was one thing that typified that Liverpool vintage, it was ruthlessness. There was never any complacency, no question of resting on laurels. When John Wark was signed from Ipswich in March 1984 and given the №10 shirt Robinson had worn earlier in the season, the Dear-John graffiti was on the wall.
Apart from a stunning goal worthy of Dalglish himself in a League Cup tie against Sheffield Wednesday, I’d be lying if I said I had too many memories of Robinson in Liverpool red. The reason I never forgot him was ‘the word’.
In his first taste of the Merseyside derby against Everton — also the first I recall watching live — Robinson scored a poacher’s goal in a 3–0 win. In the post-match interview, he was pleasant and articulate. It’s the worst cliché that sportspersons are daft and inarticulate people who deal only in platitudes. If they do stick to the generic most of the time, it’s only to avoid unnecessary controversy. That afternoon though, Robinson used a word that left me flummoxed. I had no clue what he meant.
More than 35 years later, when I learned that he had been diagnosed with cancer, I tried to find that video online. When I did — thank you, Dave Waller, for uploading it — it was a shock to see how young Robinson looked. And I did find ‘the word’. When asked whether he thought he had settled in at Liverpool, Robinson said it would be ‘presumptuous’ to say that.
Presumptuous. Not a word you hear too much at press conferences. But that little exchange offered a little glimpse of the future. Despite going to Spain as a player with no knowledge of Spanish, Robinson learned the language so well that he produced his shows in it.
That was what linked the two men. Both came from nothing, and ended up at the very pinnacle of their craft. Robinson constantly underplayed his football career, but playing in a European Cup final — and coming on as a substitute for Dalglish, the greatest player in Liverpool’s history — is second only to lifting the World Cup. As for Irrfan, the appreciation of his thespian gifts extended far beyond India’s borders.
In these lockdown times, with futures so uncertain, we need to be able to dream. Both Robinson and Irrfan did that. Despite not being blessed with Dalglish’s talent or Newman’s perfect face, these Ordinary Joes lived their dreams. If that doesn’t give you hope, what can?