Earlier this year Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan revealed that he is going through near-fatal neuroendocrine cancer. He is currently receiving treatment in London. He has shared the pain and difficulties that he is going through with a note. Titled A Note From London he spoke about how he was a part of a “trial-and-error game”. His note also expresses his fears.
“I had been in a different game, I was travelling on a speedy train ride, had dreams, plans, aspirations, goals, was fully engaged in them. And suddenly someone taps on my shoulder and I turn to see. It’s the TC [ticket collector]: ‘Your destination is about to come. Please get down.’ I am confused: ‘No, no. My destination hasn’t come.’ ‘No, this is it. This is how it is sometimes,’” he wrote.
“The suddenness made me realize how you are just a cork floating in the ocean with unpredictable currents! And you are desperately trying to control it,” he added. “As I was entering the hospital, drained, exhausted, listless, I hardly realised my hospital was on the opposite side of Lord’s, the stadium … Once, while standing on the balcony of my hospital room, the peculiarity jolted me. Between the game of life and the game of death, there is just a road. On one side, a hospital, on the other, a stadium. As if one isn’t part of anything which might claim certainty – neither the hospital, nor the stadium. That hit me hard,” Khan said.
Khan, who is one of Bollywood most critically-acclaimed actors, was convinced that the hospital’s location was a sign from the universe. “The peculiarity of my hospital’s location — it hit me. The only thing certain was the uncertainty. All I could do was to realise my strength and play my game better. 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.” “For the first time, I felt what ‘freedom’ truly means. It felt like an accomplishment. As if I was tasting life for the first time, the magical side of it. My confidence in the intelligence of the cosmos became absolute. I feel as if it has entered every cell of mine.”
The actor also thanked his fans for their prayers and how he felt their infinite goodwill in every cell of his body. “Each flower, each twig, each leaf which has come from the cumulative prayers, each fills me with wonder, happiness and curiosity. A realisation that the cork doesn’t need to control the current. That you are being gently rocked in the cradle of nature,” he said.
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