Legendary Actor Irrfan Khan's Death Feels Like A Personal Loss To Most Of Us. Here's Why

Look around you and notice how everyone's gutted by Irrfan Khan's death. Bollywood celebrities and even those across the ocean are mourning the loss of a movie star who was known for his unmatched acting prowess that made him conquer both Hindi cinema and Hollywood.?

His passing away came as a personal blow to most of us. It could be because of how Irrfan?proved diligently that Bollywood is not all about lineage.?How talent and hard work have their own unique shine. Mainly, it was his explicable love for acting that made cinema magical for us and that's why this loss is personal.?

TOI

Irrfan Khan infused his characters with so much depth, they felt real.?

In a scene, in Ritesh Batra's, The Lunchbox, Irrfan plays Saajan Fernandes, a widower, and?says, "We forget stories if we have no one to tell them to."?If anyone who has ever experienced even a minuscule emotion of loneliness will know exactly how this feels like.? ?

Amazon Prime

It was also in 2007, Mira Nair's critically acclaimed film The Namesake, where Irrfan's portrayal of a Kolkata native who moves to New York is stunningly real. He exceptionally captured the internal conflict familiar to any migrant and that is between?holding onto one’s heritage while embracing a brand new world. Most immigrants in America felt their lives playing out on the big screen.?

The Namesake

Discussing any of Irrfan Khan's long list of great performances is incomplete with revisiting his role as Roohdar in Vishal Bharadwaj's Haider. Never has a performance been so unnerving and strange at the same time. His recital of this dialogue, "Rooh ki maut nahin hoti aur roohdar marta nahin hai," sealed him as an iconic actor, if that wasn't established earlier.?

Irrfan brilliantly proved through his characters that he is one of us and that's why we feel like a part of us has gone away forever.

Haider

The actor who communicated with us in silence and brought out emotions we were too afraid to accept.

Kal Penn, who co-starred with Khan in “The Namesake,” also posted his condolences on?Twitter.?Penn gets one thing absolutely right about Irrfan at how we have "never?ever seen someone use the beats of silence so beautifully to convey so much about who we are."

I have always believed that cinema is one place we don't go to see stars or celebrities; rather our best and worst selves. To gain insight into those buried parts of our lives that are too painful and vulnerable to un-box in real life.?Irrfan Khan was the blood and flesh to that pain and love. A master of emotive silence that enacted those very unwanted feelings with so much finesse that we could actually come to terms with it. That's why his demise is personal.?

New York Times

Why we never spoke a lot more about him?

Lastly, if you noticed, most of us never spoke about Irrfan Khan in our conversations about films or songs. Many would assume we took this gifted individual for granted. But in my opinion, none of us ever did. We all regarded him like we treat our most sacred things: by never talking about them. In the fear, they will be robbed from us.?

Irrfan Khan has been robbed from us but has found a new home: in our hearts. Where he will forever live.?