Irrfan Khan’s childhood friend, an IPS officer, recalls how actor saved his life in school

IPS officer Haider Ali Zaidi remembered his childhood friend, actor Irrfan Khan, who breathed his last on Wednesday.

Actor Irrfan Khan succumbed to a colon infection at Mumbai’s Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital on Wednesday, four days after his mother Saeda Begum died in Jaipur. He had been battling a neuroendocrine tumour since 2018.

Irrfan Khan with his childhood friend Bharatpur SP Haider Ali Zaidi.

Haider Ali Zaidi, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer currently posted as Superintendent of Police (SP) in Bharatpur, was a childhood friend of the actor and they went to school and college together in Jaipur.

“I was shocked after hearing the information that my childhood friend is no more,” said the officer, who went to London to meet the actor when he was undergoing cancer treatment.

Khan and Zaidi were neighbours and went to school and college together in Jaipur. Khan held a Master of Arts in Urdu and Zaidi holds a Master of Arts in economics.

Haider Ali Zaidi and Irrfan Khan.

Sharing his memories with Khan, Zaidi said, “He is no more but I feel that he will call me right now or come here to meet me.” He revealed that the actor saved his life when he accidentally touched a live electric wire while returning from school. “He pushed me to save my life,” Zaidi said.

Khan had gone to Mumbai to join films after studying acting at the National School of Drama. During his struggling days, he often travelled in local trains on an empty stomach.

“I had always been in touch with him. We have lost a good actor and man,” said the IPS officer.

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