Samina Peerzada’s latest guest on ‘Rewind With Samina Peerzada’ was Emmad Irfani, who’s currently one of the most sought after drama actors post-success of ‘Cheekh.’ The model-turned-actor divulged about his childhood, and the struggles he had to face growing up in a toxic family dynamic that plunged him into darkness.
Emmad recalled his love for football and cricket growing up and discussed his budding cricket career before tragedy struck.
The ‘Cheekh’ actor revealed he was at the peak of his blossoming cricket career when playing for Lahore juniors. However, when he was 18, Emmad suffered a stress fracture in his ankle, and could no longer play cricket. “Samina ji I was shattered into pieces,” said Emmad.
He was crushed because for Emmad, cricket and football were his only outs from life’s woes.
This unfortunate blow to his dreams to pursue cricket cost him his self-esteem and confidence; “I lost everything, and I also had a lisp” relayed Emmad – something that catalyzed his growing loneliness. Samina asked if he had any friends to confide in, to which he admitted that he could only dive deep into sports or films to release all stress.
Emmad’s parents wanted him to be “orthodox, conventionally white collared” and often compared him to his siblings who were academically focused.
As a result of not being able to effectively communicate with his parents, he succumbed to an “inferiority complex” and an “emotional disorder” that made him a very shy boy. He couldn’t speak to his mother or father about what he faced, an unfortunately very relatable (and bitter) truth for many in Pakistan; our parents fail to truly get to know us sometimes, and it can be very detrimental. It reached a dizzying downfall when Emmad said he began questioning everything about him and asked what was wrong with him.
Emmad confessed how he wanted to become a cricketer like Imran Khan, and wanted to be everything he was; his dream never came true, however much he wanted it to be.
The actor remained inspiringly dignified while talking about his failures, his what-ifs and all that he wanted to be – a remarkably wonderful outlook to have. Emmad remained very positive despite all his struggles both physically and mentally; he had a lot of demons that he chose to face, fight and destroy.
Here’s the full episode:
