Dear jury, hope Irrfan isn't snubbed during National Awards

He is not a typical Hindi film hero, he doesn't really have any signature move, neither can he dance like a dream but every time Irrfan Khan comes on screen, he manages to captivate us all.

From a cheating husband in a cringe worthy 'Thank you' to his latest cynical government employee in 'The Lunchbox', there is no character that Irrfan can't portray. They may be varied, they may cater to different sections of the society but Irrfan knows how to please them all.

He has been around for a while now. Done plenty of films, some tv shows and dabbled in theatres as well. In each of these mediums, Irrfan has managed to just better his own craft and time and again proved that his talent is rare to find and the as an actor, there is no one who comes close to him. From playing the Bengali professor in 'The Namesake' to a brief role in 'The Amazing Spiderman' to the brooding lover in 'Maqbool' - Irrfan has always managed to make each of the characters his own.

His latest, 'The Lunchbox', has him playing cynical Sajan Fernandez, the man nearing his retirement and realising that how time is not on his side until he finds a reason to be happy again all thanks to some letters neatly tucked in a lunch box by a stranger. A difficult role for Khan perhaps, because the character wasn't a expressive man and Irrfan had to maintain a certain expression throughout the film. Surely for someone as emotive as Irrfan, it couldn't have been easy to play a man who barely smiled.

But in spite of playing a non expressive Sajan Fernandez, Irrfan in almost every scene layered his character so well that it spoke without really mouthing any dialogue. Remember the scene where he is desperately wants to read the letter but can't because he has to share his lunch with his over friendly colleague Sheik (a character brilliantly played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui)? Where he almost makes his viewers as fidgety as he is to know what Ela has written to him on that day? Or the scene where he reluctantly smiles at an old woman in a crowded metro who has been gaping at him for a while? A loner who maybe the scrooge for his neighbourhood kids but he is an endearing man who doesn't mind smiling to a toothless destitute in the train.

The film may have been ruthlessly snubbed by the Film Federation of India for this year's Oscars, but Irrfan's performance surely deserves a nod from the Jury during National Films Awards. He had won the Best Actor award last year for his poignant, heartwarming portrayal of an athlete wronged by the government in 'Pan Singh Tomar' a role which till 'The Lunchbox' happened was considered the actors best performance till date.

But with Ritesh Batra's new film, Irrfan has managed to reinstate a fact that is, by now, well known in the film industry- that when it comes to being true to ones craft, he is the Khan to bank upon.