"I tried buying a burial cot for myself the other day, and what they offered me was a vertical one... I have spent my whole life standing in trains and buses... now I will stand when I'm dead," a dialogue from critically acclaimed film "The Lunchbox" simply summarized the pain of every-day urban melancholy, even in death. It was the summer of 2013, a roaring round of applause echoed through the walls of a cinema hall in the French city of Cannes packed with filmmakers, film critics and cinema lovers – Irrfan Khan, playing a character of a man in the twilight of his life, had just delivered these lines on the silver screen.

On Wednesday, when Khan's family broke the distressing news of his demise, the dialogue rang in the ears of many of his fans, who were left numb upon hearing the unexpected.

The 53-year-old actor, who was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer in 2018, breathed his last in Mumbai's Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital. He is survived by his wife Satrupa and two sons.

"A man of few words and an actor of silent expressions with his deep eyes and his memorable action on screen. Irrfan was a strong soul, someone who fought till the very end and always inspired everyone who came close to him," his family said in a statement.

Millions of his fans across the globe, already battling a global pandemic, came together to pay tributes to a man who leaves behind a legacy of timeless and genius cinema.

Known internationally for his performances in Hollywood blockbusters like "Slumdog Millionaire," "Life of Pi," "The Amazing Spiderman," "Jurassic World" and "Inferno" among many others, Khan was seen as Bollywood's most frequent face in Hollywood.

He made his debut in 1988 with Mira Nair's critically acclaimed and Academy Award-nominated "Salaam Bombay!" However, lacking the typical chocolate boy Bollywood lead look, stardom came much later – in his 30s – when he had decided to give up on the craft.

In 2001, he grabbed the lead role in "The Warrior" after British-Indian filmmaker Asif Kapadia couldn't find the budget to pay established Bollywood stars for the film. The film claimed the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the Baftas.

"Maqbool," an adaption of Shakespeare's Macbeth, is one of his most loved Bollywood films along with the Hamlet adaptation "Haider," real-life murder mystery "Talvar," and a satire on obsession with English language in India's urban education system "Hindi Medium."

"I was travelling on a speedy train ride, had dreams, plans, aspirations, goals, was fully engaged in them. And suddenly someone taps on my shoulder and I turn to see. It's the TC (ticket collector): 'Your destination is about to come. Please get down,'" said Khan while describing the jolt of being diagnosed with cancer, and later coming to a peaceful compromise with destiny, in a 2018 interview.