Irshad Panjatan

Irshad Panjatan Biography

Irshad Panjatan is an actor and veteran mime artist, based in Berlin. He has played supporting roles in Bollywood films since 1965. He is credited to introducing the art of mime to Indian entertainment field in the 1960s. He started his career as stage actor, did brief roles in films and later earned recognition as a mime artist. He has also acted in a few Hollywood and German films like Manitou's Shoe (2001), Free Rainer (2007), God is No Soprano (2003) and Iron Sky (2012). Aasmaan Mahal, Heer Raanjha, Bikre Moti, Chhoti Bahu, Saat Hindustani etc are some of Bollywood films he acted in the 1960s and 1970s before he forayed to stage performances as a mime artist.

Irshad Panjatan was born on 7 September 1931 in Hyderabad, Telangana. Currently he is settled in Berlin, Germany. He was born into a big family of 7 siblings. His elder brother Dr. Abid Hussain was an economist, civil servant and diplomat who served as India's Ambassador to USA from 1990 to 1992 and a member of the Planning Commission from 1985 to 1990. Panjatan started his career as an aviation engineer. But his passion towards art and cinema prompted him to move to Delhi in the early 1950s to pursue a career in this field.

He trained in Kathakali, and then started his career as a stage actor with Hindustani Theatre. His role in the play Charudatta was well noticed. He happened to see a local mime artist perform on the streets of Delhi, and decided to master this art through self-learning. He performed his first mime play in 1962 in Delhi. It was the first mime show conducted on stage on Indian platform. Though he played brief roles in films, he was mostly engaged with his stage performances throughout his active career.

Published: November 18, 2018

Updated: November 18, 2018