His father never too far from his thoughts and words, Babil Khan says he always wanted to be a "performer" and was scared to admit it because frankly Irrfan Khan was "so great". And after all, "father-son have this ego thing". The 26-year-old walking in the footsteps of his late father, amongst the few Indian actors whose talent was recognised not just at home but also in the west, has made his presence felt in the film "Qala" and the web series "The Railway Men". There were many detours along the way to a film career. Babil could well have been a sportsperson. But an injury put a full stop on those aspirations and he ended up pursuing a cinematography course from a university in the UK. He said he was scared to tell his father that he wanted to get into the movies.

"Because father-son have this ego thing... what if I fail because he was so great. But I finally admitted. And he was terrified for me because he knew how he had brought me up. I was a very sensitive child," Babil told PTI in an interview. He said he now realises he loves cinematography but only as a hobby, just like photography. "My passion is performance. It could be acting, it could be music. Right now I`m a very shy singer. I would like to explore that after I do a little bit of acting." Irrfan was diagnosed with cancer while Babil was studying. "I was going to come back from university and spend time with baba. I really didn`t think that he would go, mama also thought he will recover 100 per cent," Babil recalled in vivid detail about his father who died in April 2020. "He beat his cancer and then he left.... He had to leave this world because chemo had destroyed his body. Cancer cells were zero but there was no immune system left. Just a simple infection took his life. He beat cancer so even that is a beautiful thing that he finished his last challenge."