When Irrfan once shocked family saying he would fast on a day associated with Lord Shiva, Sutapa narrates incident

Irrfan Khan's wife Sutapa Sikdar revealed in a recent interview the late actor's views on religion. She narrated an incident when he had shocked his relatives.

Thursday will mark one year since the death of the actor. On April 29, 2020, the actor died after battling neuro-endocrine tumor for two years.

Speaking to a leading daily, she spoke about how she keeps a fast even though she is not a Muslim. She noted how Irrfan had taught her that one didn't have to convert to be a Muslim, to keep rozas or to converse with Allah.

She added how he could never fast though he did want to towards the end and how he had shocked his relatives. "Irrfan couldn’t fast, though he wanted desperately to in the last two years. He would say ki ek din hafte mein main fasting karunga hi (I will fast once a week). And he gave a shock to his relatives saying, ‘Maine soch liya hai ki main somvaar ka fast karunga, Shivji ka din hota hai’.(I have decided that I will fast on a Monday as it is the day of Lord Shiva)."

Sutapa also revealed how had Irrfan lived, he would have made his own religion and how religion to him meant spirituality.

"Mere ko toh yeh bhi lagta tha ki he will make his own religion. If nothing had happened, cancer had not happened even then. He was destined to leave this showbiz and go on some search of his own. He was on the journey of a search, of himself, of this world, bigger things than this world, parallel reality, parallel world. He was constantly into it - reading and studying, you know. He was like a kaise main kahoon, matlab ek yatri hota hai na duniya mein (how should I put it - there is just a traveller in the world)? That was the only reality - he did not believe in it. Religion for him was spirituality. During this period, he read the Upanishads, he read Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Vivekananda... but he was never a typically 'religious' person. Osho, Mahaveer, he read everything."

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Sutapa also said about how Irrfan never believed in any tags - of gender, religion, or anything else.

In the last one year, while her son Babil had been expressive about his feelings of loss, Sutapa had had not opened up about her feeling of loss.