Happy Birthday Irrfan Khan: From Rana to Maqbool; Characters immortalised by the late legendary actor

Be it the middle-aged Saajan, smiling at the letters in his lunchbox, the irritated business owner Rana who is dragged on a road trip, or the doting dad and devoted husband Raj, Irrfan Khan's portrayals are unforgettable. With a filmography of over 74 films, the late actor has immortalised several characters, so much so, that it is impossible to imagine anyone else playing the parts the way he did. On his 54th birth anniversary today, January 7, we take a look at some of his work that will forever remain etched in our memories...

In 'The Lunchbox', Irrfan plays the role of a widower, Saajan, who is close to retirement from his job as an accountant. He develops an unconventional friendship, through an exchange of notes in a lunchbox with Ila (Nimrat Kaur) a middle-class housewife when the tiffin box she packs for her husband gets delivered to him by mistake. Soon, the friendship blossoms and Ila and Saajan's notes become confessions and acknowledgements about their loneliness, memories, regrets, fears, and small joys, as they individually discover a new sense of self and find an anchor to hold on to in Mumbai. It is impossible to imagine anyone but Irrfan playing the greying, bored accountant who transforms into a man with a zest for life in the course of the film.

In both Hindi Medium and its sequel Angrezi Medium, Irrfan Khan played a doting father ready to cross all barriers to ensure his daughter received the best education. While in the former, he did so at the behest of his wife who wanted to get their daughter admitted to a posh English medium school, in the latter, he felt compelled to send his daughter abroad for higher education on her request. But what shone through in both portrayals is Irrfan's complete surrender to the characters which demanded him to channel his inner parent and be stern yet vulnerable with his kids at the same time.

In Piku, Irrfan played Rana, a taxi business owner, who finds himself in the driver's seat when all his employees refuse to ply the temperamental Piku (Deepika Padukone) and her father Bhaskor (Amitabh Bachchan) from Delhi to Kolkata. During the road trip, Rana develops a bond with Piku and her hypochondriac dad. Even in the limited screen time that he had in the film, Irrfan made an impact with his expressions and straight-faced humour. It's difficult to imagine anyone else bringing in an element of romance so subtle, you'd be left guessing if it was there at all.

For his role as a father in The Namesake, Irrfan completely transformed himself into a Bengali father, Ashoke Ganguli, who tried his best to keep his children rooted in Indian culture despite being brought up abroad. Directed by Mira Nair, the Indo-American drama was Irrfan’s first Hollywood project and yet there was no apprehension in his portrayal. Who can forget the scene where he takes his son across the rocks to the place where there was nowhere left to go.

Based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Maqbool’ was set against the backdrop of the Mumbai underworld, and had a very young Irrfan playing the right hand of underworld don Jahangir Khan. Irrfan's portrayal of a man torn between his love for Nimmi, the don's mistress, and his loyalty to the don himself, was unparalleled!

Remember when Irrfan said, “Sharafat ki duniya ka ab kissa hi khatam… ab jaisi duniya, waise hum”? It's difficult to imagine anyone else eliciting the same goosebump-causing reaction as he did. The crime thriller, directed by Sanjay Gupta, had the actor playing an ex-cop Yohan who helps his criminal lawyer-friend Anuradha (Aishwarya) to find her kidnapped daughter.

As Monty, a free-spirited middle-class office goer in his late 30s, Irrfan played a man eager to get married. The manner in which he approaches the love story that starts out with a misunderstanding with Konkona Sen Sharma's character and eventually develops into one where they confide into each other, is a study in acting. A flawless performance indeed!