Mumbai: The Bollywood actor, Padmasree recipient Irrfan Khan (53) passes away on Wednesday in Mumbai at Kokila Ben Dhirubhai Ambani hospital. He was hospitalized following Colon infection. He received Filmfare awards for Best Villain and Best supporting actor, the Asian Film award, Screen Actors Guild award. He received Padmasree award in 2011.

He was survived by wife Sutapa and sons Babil Khan and Ayaan Khan. South Indian stars Kamal Hassan, Chiranjeevi, Mahesh Babu, Dulquer Salmaan, Mohan Lal and Dhanush poured condolences to the departed hero.

           Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his condolences message said that Irrfan Khan’s demise is a loss to the world of Cinema and Theatre. He will remember for his versatile performances across different mediums. Bollywood legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan said an incredible talent, a gracious colleague a prolific contributor to the world of Cinema, left us to soon creating a huge vacuum. Sujit Sarkar, Kokona Sen Sharma, Mahesh Butt, Vidya Balan, Anurag Basu and other prominent celebrities of Bollywood poured condolences.

Irrfan Khan is a well known actor in Hindi, British and Hollywood films. He hailed from a Muslim Nawab family in Jaipur. He studied M.A degree and he earned a scholarship to study at the National School of Drama (NSD) in New Delhi in 1984.

He started his television career in numerous serials like ‘Chanakya’,’Sara Jahan Hamara’, ‘Banegi Apni Baat’ and ‘Chandrakanta’ (Doordarshan) and ‘Star Bestsellers’ (Star Plus), Sparsh, etc.  He was the main villain in a series called Darr (which aired on Star Plus), where he played the role of a psycho serial killer, opposite Kay Kay Menon. He also played the role of the famous revolutionary Urdu poet and Marxist political activist of India Makhdoom Mohiuddin in Kahkashan produced by Ali Sardar Jafri.

     Theatre and television kept him afloat until Mira Nair offered him a cameo in Salaam Bombay (1988) though his role was edited out in the final film. In the 1990s, he appeared in the critically acclaimed film Ek Doctor Ki Maut and Such a Long Journey (1998) and various other films which went unnoticed.

London-based director Asif Kapadia offered a lead role in The Warrior, a historical film completed in 11 weeks on the locals in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. In 2001, The Warrior stormed in international film festivals, making Irrfan Khan a known face, world over. In 2003, he acted in Indian born writer-director, Asvin Kumar’s short film, Road to Ladakh. After the film received rave reviews at international festivals, the film was made into a full length feature, again starring Irrfan Khan. That same year he played the title role in the critically acclaimed Maqbool, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

        His first Bollywood main lead role came in 2005 with the film Rog. Thereafter, he appeared in several films either playing the leading role or a supporting role as a villain. In 2004, he won the Filmfare Best Villain Award for his role in the film Haasil. In 2007, he appeared in the box office hits Metro, for which he received a Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award, and The Namesake, which was a hit overseas. They were closely followed by his appearance in the international films A Mighty Heart and The Darjeeling Limited.

He used to anchor a show ‘Mano Ya Na Mano’ (aired on Star One). He had hosted another programme called “Kya Kahen” which was on the similar lines of Mano Ya Na Mano based on superstition and extra sensory perception. He also played the police inspector in the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, for which he won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.