Namesake is a term used to characterize a person, place, thing, quality, action, state, or idea that has the same, or a similar, name to another.^[1]

In the United States, the term is often used for a person or thing actually named after, rather than merely sharing the name of another.^[2] For example, if a person, place, or thing is named after another person, place, or thing, then the name target is said to be the namesake of the name source. The earliest use reported in the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1635. Dictionaries suggest that the word probably comes from "name's sake", "for one's name('s) sake", for "name sake".

History[link]

The term namesake was first recorded in 1635, referring to a place with the same name as another.^[1] Among other recordings, a 1646 usage was carried through in an 1806 publication, entitled A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language.^[3] Modern-day usage has expanded to several uses for the term.^[4]

Usage[link]

Using a namesake's name is a relatively common practice in naming children that has given rise to the large number of "Jr.", "III", and other name suffixes. Namesakes are often used in tribute to older, related persons, such as grandparents. Use of a namesake's name in a leadership position may indicate certain things, usually referring to certain traits of the namesake, such as in the use of papal regnal names.

Some commercial entities and products are named after their creators, such as the Trump Tower and Ford Motor Company. Items are also named after people associated with them, such as the teddy bear. This is especially the case with scientific discoveries and theories, such as Gibbs free energy. When the target name merely is derived from the source name without an additional "sake" connection, such usage more accurately may be called an eponym rather than a namesake.

Discrepancies in meaning (US usage)[link]

There has been some discrepancy as to whether the name source or the name target takes the term namesake. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a namesake is a person or thing named after another.^[5] In other words, the name target takes the term namesake, as in

"I was named after my grandfather. I am his namesake."

or

"Julian's Castle, Julian's namesake restaurant."

The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary are not so restrictive. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a namesake is a person or thing having the same name as another. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines "namesake" as "one that has the same name as another; especially one who is named after another or for whom another is named",^[5] allowing the usage of:

"I met a person who happened to have the same name as me. We are namesakes."

By "for whom another is named", Merriam-Webster's Dictionary allows the term namesake to be used in reference to the name source as in,^[5]

"I was named after my grandfather. He is my namesake."

Both usages of namesake are correct. This ambiguity sometimes may be resolved by the term eponym or "namegiver", which refers to the name source as providing the name to the name receiver.^[6]

Examples of namesakes[link]

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this section if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (May 2008)

Popular culture[link]

• Woody Allen (for his favourite jazz singer Woody Herman);
• The teddy bear (after Theodore Roosevelt)
• The Nintendo mascot, Mario (after Mario Segale)
• Daughtry (for its frontman, Chris Daughtry)
• Van Halen (for its founding brothers Eddie & Alex Van Halen)
• The Jackson 5 (later known as The Jacksons) (for its members Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Michael, Randy, Rebbie, & Janet Jackson)
• Hanson (for its members Isaac, Taylor, & Zac Hanson)
• Fleetwood Mac (for its members Mick Fleetwood and John McVie)
• Bon Jovi (for its frontman, Jon Bon Jovi)
• Guns N' Roses (for its lead vocalist Axl Rose and former guitarist Tracii Guns)
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (after band leader Bruce Springsteen and E Street in Belmar, New Jersey)

Scientific terms[link]

• ohm named after Georg Ohm.
• Gibbs free energy (after Josiah Willard Gibbs)
• Michaelis-Menten kinetics (after Leonor Michaelis and Maud Menten)
• Von Neumann architecture (after John von Neumann)

Sports[link]

• The Stanley Cup (after Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby)
• Heisman Trophy (after John Heisman)

Commercial products and entities[link]

• Bose Corporation (after Amar Bose)
• Boeing (after William Boeing)
• Cox Enterprises (after James M. Cox)
• Craigslist (after Craig Newmark)
• Dell, Inc. (after Michael Dell)
• The Walt Disney Company (after Walt Disney, one of the company's co-founders)
• Fox Film Corporation & FOX (after William Fox)
• Godrej Group (after Pirojsha and Ardeshir Godrej)
• Hearst Corporation (after William Randolph Hearst)
• Heineken International (after Gerard Adriaan Heineken)
• The Jim Henson Company (after Jim Henson)
• Hilton Worldwide (after Conrad Hilton)
• Koch Industries (after Fred C. Koch)
• Larsen & Tourbo (after its founders Henning Holck-Larsen and Søren Kristian Toubro)
• Loews Theaters/Loews Incorporated (after Marcus Loew)
• Mars, Inc. (after Franklin Clarence Mars)
• Morgan Stanley (after Henry S. Morgan and Harold Stanley)
• Prada (after Mario Prada)
• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (after Martha Stewart)
• Simmons & Company International (after its founder Matthew R. Simmons)
• Thomson Corporation (after David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet)
• TATA Group (after Jamsetji Tata,founder of the group)
• Trump Organization and Trump Entertainment Resorts (after Donald Trump)
• Ty Inc. (after Ty Warner)
• Walmart and Sam's Club (after Sam Walton)
• Warner Bros. (after Harry, Albert, Sam, & Jack Warner)

Professional examples[link]

• Pope
• Regnal name

Namesake Cataloguing[link]

Casual or accidental identification of personal namesakes can occur in daily life via a number of sources, including: telephone directories, newspaper births/deaths/marriages announcements, dictionaries of biography, internet search engines, etc.

There are some notable examples of deliberate searching for and identification of non-related personal namesakes.

• Starting with a drunken wager, British Comedian Dave Gorman used a wide variety of methods to find namesakes, an exercise which then evolved into a 2001 stage show "Are You Dave Gorman" and which was subsequently made into a book and television series [1].
• US actor/filmmaker Jim Killeen used the Google search engine to find personal namesakes for his 2007 documentary "Google Me" [2]

See also[link]

Look up namesake in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Code name, word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word
• Cognomen, inherited name
• Protected Geographical Status, product target name sourced to protected geographical name
• Scientific phenomena named after people

References[link]

Mira Nair
Nair at the 2008 IIFW Masterclass Directors Meet
Born	(1957-10-15) October 15, 1957 (age 54) Rourkela, Orissa, India
Occupation	Film director, film producer
Years active	1986–present
Spouse	Mitch Epstein (divorced) Mahmood Mamdani (1988–present)

Mira Nair (born October 15, 1957) is an Indian film director and producer based in New York.^[1] Her production company is Mirabai Films.

She was educated at Delhi University and Harvard University. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! (1988), won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and also earned the nomination for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. She used the proceeds of the film, to establish an organization for street children, called the Salaam Baalak Trust in India.^[2] She often works with longtime creative collaborator, screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala, whom she met at Harvard.

She has won a number of awards, including a National Film Award and various international film festival awards, and was a nominee at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards and Filmfare Awards. She was also awarded the India Abroad Person of the Year-2007, which was presented by Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and CEO, PepsiCo, Inc, and India Abroad Person of the Year-2006.^[3] In 2012 she was awarded India's third highest civilian award the Padma Bhushan by President of India, Pratibha Patil.^[4]

Her most recent films included Vanity Fair with Reese Witherspoon, The Namesake, and Amelia.^[5]

Early life[link]

Mira Nair, a Punjabi and a malayali, was born in Rourkela, Orissa^[6] where her father was employed. She was the youngest of three children from a middle-class family. Her father was a civil servant and her mother a social worker.

Mira did her early schooling at a boarding school, Loreto Convent Tara Hall in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. She studied sociology at Miranda House, Delhi University, where she became involved in political street theater and performed for three years in an amateur drama company. In 1976, at age 19 she left for the US^[7] with a scholarship at Harvard University, where she continued her studies in sociology.^[8] While at Harvard she met her first husband, photographer Mitch Epstein, as well as her screenwriter, Sooni Taraporevala and gradually moved towards making documentary films.

Career[link]

At the beginning of her career as a film artist, Nair directed four television documentaries. India Cabaret, a film about the lives of strippers in a Bombay nightclub, won the Blue Ribbon award at the 1986 American Film Festival. Salaam Bombay! (1988), with a screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won many other awards. It is today considered a groundbreaking film classic, and is standard fare for film students.

The 1991 film Mississippi Masala starred Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury, and profiled a family of displaced Ugandan-Indians living and working in Mississippi. The screenplay was again by Sooni Taraporevala, and produced by Michael Nozik. In 1995 her film adaption of the book The Perez Family, by Christine Bell, was released. The film starred Marisa Tomei, Alfred Molina, and Angelica Huston, and was again produced by Michael Nozik.

She was also the director of the movie Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love a provocative movie set in 16th century India. In 1998 she made My Own Country starring Naveen Andrews. It was produced for HBO Films and adapted from the memoir by Abraham Verghese by Sooni Taraporevala.

In 2001 she released Monsoon Wedding (2001), a film about a chaotic Punjabi Indian wedding with a screenplay by Sabrina Dhawan. It was awarded the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, making Nair the first female recipient of the award.^[9] After the success of Monsoon Wedding Nair collaborated with writer Julian Fellowes on her 2004 adaptation of Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair starring Reese Witherspoon. The same year she also founded Maisha, a film lab to help East Africans and South Asians learn to make films.^[10] Maisha is headquartered in Nair's adopted home of Kampala, Uganda. Later that year she rejected an offer to direct Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix saying, "...I would prefer someone else make it. I am better suited to emotions, human beings, and less interested in special effects.".^[11]

Her next film, The Namesake, premiered in fall 2006 at Dartmouth College where Nair was presented with the Dartmouth Film Award. Another premiere was held in fall 2006 with the Indo-American Arts Council in New York.^[12] The Namesake, adapted by Sooni Taraporevala from the novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri, was released in March 2007. The same year she was honoured with the Pride of India award at the 9th Bollywood Movie Awards for her contributions to the film industry.^[13][14]

She directed a short film in New York, I Love You, a romantic-drama anthology of love stories set in New York and a 12-minute movie on AIDS awareness (funded by The Gates Foundation) called Migration.^[15][16]

Her biographical film Amelia was released in October 2009 to predominantly negative reviews.^[17][18]

For several years, Nair was attached to a big-budget adaptation of the novel Shantaram, but the production was shelved in 2009. Nair has also purchased the rights to Mohsin Hamid's 2007 novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist.^[19]

Personal life[link]

Nair lives near Columbia University in New York City where she is an adjunct professor in the Film Division of the School of Arts, and where her husband, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, also teaches.^[20][21] Nair and her husband first met in 1988, when she went to Uganda for the first time to research for the film Mississippi Masala.^[7] Nair has been an enthusiastic yoga practitioner for decades; when making a film, she has the cast and crew start the day with a yoga session.^[22] Nair has one son named Zohran.^[23]

Filmography[link]

• Jama Street Masjid Journal (1979)
• So Far From India (1982)
• India Cabaret (1985)
• Children Of A Desired Sex (1987)
• Salaam Bombay! (1988)^[5]
• Mississippi Masala (1991)^[5]
• The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat (1993)
• The Perez Family (1995)^[5]
• Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)^[5]
• My Own Country (1998) (Showtime)
• Monsoon Wedding (2001)^[5]
• Hysterical Blindness (2002)
• 11'9"01 September 11 (Segment - "India") (2002)
• Still, The Children are Here (2003)
• Vanity Fair (2004)^[5]
• The Namesake (2006)^[5]
• Migration (AIDS Jaago) (2007)^[24]
• New York, I Love You (Segment - "Kosher Vegetarian") (2009)^[25]
• 8 (Segment - "How can it be?") (2008)^[26]
• Amelia (2009)^[5]

Awards[link]

Wins[link]

• 1985: Best Documentary Film, Global Village Film Festival: India Cabaret
• 1986: Golden Athena, Athens International Film Festival: India Cabaret
• 1986: Blue Ribbon, American Film Festival: India Cabaret
• 1988: Audience Award, Cannes Film Festival: Salaam Bombay!
• 1988: Golden Camera (Best First Film), Cannes Film Festival: Salaam Bombay!
• 1988: National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi: Salaam Bombay!^[27]
• 1988: National Board of Review Award for Top Foreign Films: Salaam Bombay!
• 1988: "Jury Prize", "Most Popular Film" and "Prize of the Ecumenical Jury" at Montreal World Film Festival: Salaam Bombay!
• 1988: New Generation Award, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
• 1988: Lilian Gish Award (Excellence in Feature Film), Los Angeles Women in Film Festival: Salaam Bombay!
• 1991: Golden Osella (Best Original Screenplay), Venice Film Festival: Mississippi Masala (with Sooni Taraporevala)^[28]
• 1991: Critics Special Award, São Paulo International Film Festival: Mississippi Masala
• 1992: Best Director (Foreign Film), Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists: Mississippi Masala
• 1992: Asian Media Award, Asian American International Film Festival
• 1993: Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature: Mississippi Masala
• 2000: Special Mention (Documentary and Essay), Biarritz International Festival of Audiovisual Programming: The Laughing Club of India
• 2001: Golden Lion (Best Film), Venice Film Festival: Monsoon Wedding
• 2001: Laterna Magica Prize, Venice Film Festival: Monsoon Wedding
• 2002: Audience Award, Canberra International Film Festival: Monsoon Wedding
• 2002: Special Award for International Cinema, Zee Cine Awards: Monsoon Wedding
• 2002: UNESCO Award, Venice Film Festival: 11'9"01 September 11
• 2004: Faith Hubley Web of Life Award, Rochester-High Falls International Film Festival
• 2007: "Golden Aphrodite", Love is Folly International Film Festival (Bulgaria): The Namesake
• 2012 ; Padma Bhushan by Govt. of India

Nominations[link]

• 1989: Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: Salaam Bombay!
• 1989: César Award for Best Foreign Film (Meilleur film étranger): Salaam Bombay!
• 1989: Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film: Salaam Bombay!
• 1990: BAFTA Film Award Best Film not in the English Language: Salaam Bombay!
• 1990: Filmfare Best Director Award: Salaam Bombay!
• 1990: Filmfare Best Movie Award: Salaam Bombay!
• 1991: Golden Lion (Best Film), Venice Film Festival: Mississippi Masala
• 1996: Golden Seashell, San Sebastián International Film Festival: Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love
• 1999: Best Film, Verzaubert International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival: My Own Country
• 2001: Screen International Award (Best Non-European Film), European Film Awards: Monsoon Wedding
• 2001: Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film: Monsoon Wedding
• 2002: BAFTA Film Award Best Film not in the English Language: Monsoon Wedding
• 2003: Chlotrudis Award for Best Director: Monsoon Wedding
• 2003: Golden Star, International Film Festival of Marrakech: Hysterical Blindness
• 2003: César Award for Best Film from the European Union: 11'9"01 September 11
• 2004: Golden Lion (Best Film), Venice Film Festival: Vanity Fair
• 2007: Gotham Award for Best Film: The Namesake

Further reading[link]

• Jigna Desai: Beyond Bollywood: The cultural politics of South Asian diasporic film. New York: Routledge, 2004, 280 pp. ill. ISBN 0-415-96684-1 (inb.) / ISBN 0-415-96685-X (hft.)
• Gita Rajan: Pliant and compliant: colonial Indian art and postcolonial cinema. Women. Oxford (Print), ISSN 0957-4042 ; 13(2002):1, pp. 48–69.
• Alpana Sharma: Body matters: the politics of provocation in Mira Nair's films. QRFV : Quarterly review of film and video, ISSN 1050-9208 ; 18(2001):1, pp. 91–103.
• Pratibha Parmar: Mira Nair: filmmaking in the streets of Bombay. Spare rib, ISSN 0306-7971; 198, 1989, pp. 28–29.
• Gwendolyn Audrey Foster: Women Filmmakers of the African and Asian Diaspora: Decolonizing the Gaze, Locating Subjectivity. Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8093-2120-3
• John Kenneth Muir: Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair. Hal Leonard, 2006. ISBN 1-55783-649-3, ISBN 978-1-55783-649-6.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mira Nair

• Mira Nair Bibliography (via UC Media Resources Center Berkeley)
• SAWNET biography
• Biography
• Mira Nair at the Internet Movie Database
• Maisha Film Lab in Kampala, Uganda
• Video Interview on LX.TV
• A Conversation with Mira Nair - Harvard @ Home program
• featured profile of Mira Nair - on MirabaiFilms.com
• Video interview with The Namesake director on Sidewalks Entertainment
• Video: Mira Nair at the Asia Society, Dec. 10, 2009
• Mira Nair: A Life in Pictures, BAFTA event video
• The Fabulous Picture Show (part 1, part 2) - Master Class with Mira Nair at the Doha film festival, Al Jazeera English, Dec 2009

Sooni Taraporevala
Born	1957 Mumbai
Nationality	India
Occupation	screenwriter, film director, photographer
Years active	1988–present

Sooni Taraporevala (born 1957) is an internationally acclaimed screenwriter and photographer, currently based in India. She is best known as the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay (1988), all directed by Mira Nair.^[1]

She directed her first feature film, based on a screenplay of her own, an ensemble piece set in Bombay, in Spring, 2007, entitled "Little Zizou.".^[2][3]

Early life and education[link]

Taraporevala, who is of Parsi Zoroastrian descent, was born and brought up in Mumbai.

She did her schooling from Queen Mary School in Mumbai, and thereafter did her BA from Harvard University, in 1980. Here she met Nair as an undergraduate, leading to their longtime creative collaboration. Next she joined the Cinema Studies Department at New York University, and after receiving her MA in Film Theory and Criticism, in 1981, she returned to India to work as a freelance still photographer.^[4][5][6]

Career[link]

Screenplays[link]

Collaboration with Mira Nair[link]

Ms. Taraporevala wrote the screenplays for Salaam Bombay and Mississippi Masala, both directed by Mira Nair. Interestingly, the final drafts of both these films were written in Brooklyn, NY. Other projects with Nair include the screenplay for My Own Country, based on the book by Abraham Verghese as well as the cinematic adaptation of Pulitzer-prize winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake. The film, The Namesake, was released in 2007.

Other Work[link]

Her other produced credits include the film Such a Long Journey based on the novel Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry and directed by Sturla Gunnarson. Finally, she wrote the screenplay for the film Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, directed by Dr. Jabbar Patel for the Government of India and the [[National Film Development Corporation of India[]] (NFDC).

Photography[link]

Her photographs have been exhibited in India, the US, France and Britain, including London’s Tate Modern gallery.

In Fall 2004, Ms. Taraporevala released a coffee table photography book, a first-ever visual work on India's Parsi Zoroastrian community, entitled Parsis: the Zoroastrians of India - A Photographic Journey (Overlook Press, ISBN 1-58567-593-8). A 24-year labor of love, the book offers rare photos, as well as historical and personal essays on the Zoroastrian religion and Parsi social history.^[7][8]

Taraporevala had previously self-published the book in India in 2000, where it sold out in just a few months. The book received glowing advance praise from film director Mira Nair, Harvard literature professor and noted post-colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha, acclaimed writers Rohinton Mistry and Bapsi Sidhwa and conductor Zubin Mehta.

Personal life[link]

She is married to Dr. Firdaus Bativala, a dental surgeon and lives in Mumbai, along with their two children, Jahan and Iyanah, both of whom did important roles in her film, Little Zizou (2009).^[9][10]

Filmography[link]

• Little Zizou (2009) (as writer-director)
• The Namesake (2006)
• Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar (2000)
• Such a Long Journey (1998)
• My Own Country (1998) (Showtime TV)
• Mississippi Masala (1991)
• Salaam Bombay! (1988)

Awards[link]

• 1991: Golden Osella (Best Original Screenplay) Venice Film Festival: Mississippi Masala (with Mira Nair) ^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography:

• Official Website
• Trailer of upcoming documentary on Taraporevala
• SAWNET biography
• Sooni Taraporevala at the Internet Movie Database

Misc.:

• NPR radio feature
• Iranian.com feature
• "taraporevala" St Louis Post-Dispatch- NYTimes wire story

Irrfan Khan
Khan at the launch of NDTV Lumiere's The Orphanage, May 2008
Born	Sahabzade Irrfan Ali Khan[1] (1967-01-07) 7 January 1967 (age 45) Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
Other names	Irfan
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1989–present
Spouse	Sutapa Sikdar Khan (1995–present)
Website
http://www.irrfan.com

Sahabzade Irrfan Ali Khan, previously known as Irrfan Khan and now just Irrfan^[2][3] (Hindi: इरफ़ान ख़ान; born on 7th January 1967^[4] ), is an Indian actor in film, television and theatre. He received recognition for his roles in The Warrior (2001), Maqbool (2003), Haasil (2004), The Namesake (2006), A Mighty Heart (2007), Life in a... Metro (2007), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Billu (2009), New York (2009), New York, I Love You (2009), Paan Singh Tomar (film) (2012), and Vodafone commercials.

He has won two Filmfare Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. He is also the recipient of 2011 Padma Shri award, the fourth highest civilian award in India. He has also been cast in The Amazing Spider-Man as Dr. Ratha. He has appeared in more than 30 films in the Bollywood.

Early life and background[link]

Khan was born in Jaipur to a Muslim family. Khan's mother, Sayeeda Begum, was from the Tonk Hakim family, and his father, the late Jagirdar, was from the Khajuriya village near the Tonk district, and ran a tyre business.^[5][6][7] Khan was studying for his M.A. degree when he earned a scholarship to study at National School of Drama (NSD) in New Delhi in 1984.

Career[link]

Khan moved to Mumbai, where he acted in numerous television serials like Chanakya, Bharat Ek Khoj, Sara Jahan Hamara, Banegi Apni Baat, Chandrakanta (Doordarshan), "AnooGoonj" on Doordarshan" Star Bestsellers (Star Plus), and Sparsh. 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 famous revolutionary Urdu poet and Marxist political activist of India Makhdoom Mohiuddin in Kahkashan produced by Ali Sardar Jafri.

He acted in some of the episodes of Star Bestsellers (aired on Star-Plus). In one of the episodes (Ek Sham Ki Mulakat), his role was of a parchoon shopkeeper who has a misconception that his landlord's wife is trying to seduce him and it turns out that his own wife (Tisca Chopra) is cheating on him. In the other one, he played the role of an office-accountant who, after being insulted by his female boss, took revenge. He also appeared in a serial called Bhanvar (aired on SET India) for two episodes. In one episode, he performed the role of a thug who somehow lands in court, where he. 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.

After many unsuccessful films, things changed when London-based director Asif Kapadia gave him the lead in The Warrior, a historical film completed in 11 weeks on location in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. In 2001 The Warrior opened in international film festivals, making Irrfan Khan a known face^[8].

In 2003 he acted in Indian born writer-director, Ashvin Kumar's short film, "Road to Ladakh". After the film received rave reviews^[9] at international festivals, the film is now being made into a full length feature, again starring Irrfan Khan.^[10] 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 film Rog in which his performance was praised by critics, especially a critic wrote "Irfaan's eyes speak louder than his words and every time he is in frame, be it talking to his buddy Munish or arguing with Suhel, he shows his capability as an actor"^[11]. 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 film Haasil. Critics praised his performance in Haasil saying that "as the ambitious, brash, fearless goon who is mind-blowing. He is outright scary and makes you sit up, wondering what he'll do next"^[12].

In 2007, he appeared in the box office hits Metro, for which he received a Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award, and The Namesake. They were closely followed by his appearance in the international films A Mighty Heart and The Darjeeling Limited.

Even after becoming a successful actor in Bollywood, he has not severed his ties with television. He anchored a show Mano Ya Na Mano (airing on Star One). He hosted another programme named Kyaa Kahein which was similar to Mano Ya Na Mano.

In 2008, he was featured as a narrator in an Arts Alliance production, id - Identity of the Soul. The performance toured worldwide, with tens of thousands turning out to see the event as it toured the West Bank. He also plays the police inspector in the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, for which he and the cast of the movie won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. About him, Danny Boyle said, "he has an instinctive way of finding the "moral center" of any character, so that in Slumdog, we believe the policeman might actually conclude that Jamal is innocent. Boyle compares him to an athlete who can execute the same move perfectly over and over. "It's beautiful to watch."^[13]

In 2009, he featured in the film Acid Factory. Khan has stated that he wants to do more and more action films in the future.^[14] He also appeared as an FBI agent in New York and as a Gujarati diamond merchant in New York, I Love You. His latest film Paan Singh Tomar in which essays the role of real-life Rajput runner Paan Singh Tomar has received extremely favourable reviews by critics. Irrfan has been highly praised.

He recently worked on the third season of the HBO series In Treatment, enacting the part of Sunil, who is finding it difficult to come to terms with his wife's death and loneliness after moving to New York, USA.

Khan said in an IGN interview that he will be playing Nels Van Adder, an adversary of Spider-Man, in The Amazing Spider-Man.^[15]

Personal life[link]

On 23 February 1995, Khan married writer Sutapa Sikdar, who is also an NSD graduate. They have two children named Babil and Ayan.^[1]

He has two brothers, Imran Khan and Salman Khan and one sister Rukhsana Begum.

Sutapa said about him, "He was always focused. I remember when he would come home, he would head straight for the bedroom, sit on the floor, and read books. The rest of us would be hanging around gossiping," says Sikdar. Even now, as reads through at least one new Hollywood script a week, he believes in doing his homework, staying up till 3 in the morning, taking notes, trying to understand ways to play his character. Sikdar recalls how he would demand as many as 11 rewrites from her when he directed episodes of Banegi Apni Baat. "Once he dragged me to a police station in Mumbai to understand procedure," she recalls.^[16] Recently he has changed his name to Irrfan citing that he does not want to identify himself with a particular community and that he considers acting as an art form above human divisions. He also said he likes the sound of the extra "r" in his name.^[17]

Awards[link]

Wins[link]

• 2003: Filmfare Best Villain Award - Haasil
• 2007: Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award - Life in a Metro
• 2008: Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture - Slumdog Millionaire
• 2011: Padma Shri^[18]

Nominations[link]

• 2007: Independent Spirit Award: Best Supporting Male - The Namesake
• 2008: Stardust Best Supporting Actor Award - The Namesake
• 2008: IIFA Award: IIFA Best Supporting Actor - Life in a Metro

Filmography[link]

Television[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Irrfan Khan at the Internet Movie Database

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Irrfan Khan

• Irrfan Khan Official Website
• TIME Magazine coverage of Irrfan Khan
• TIME Magazine photo feature

Nitin Sawhney
Nitin Sawhney in Lisbon, 24th Feb 2009
Background information
Born	1964 England
Origin	Rochester, Kent, England
Genres	Jazz, Drum and bass, Hip Hop, Orchestra, Trip Hop
Occupations	Producer, Songwriter, Multi-instrumentalist, DJ, Orchestral Composer
Website	NitinSawhney.com

Nitin Sawhney (born 1964) is an Indian-British musician, producer and composer. His critically acclaimed work combines Asian and other worldwide influences with elements of jazz and electronica and often explores themes such as multiculturalism, politics and spirituality. Sawhney is also active in the promotion of arts and cultural matters, and is a patron of numerous film festivals, venues, and educational institutions.