The Lunchbox (2013): ‘Food is Feed for Life while Love is Feast for Soul’

Fai Mahavana
Nov 7 · 7 min read

by Suchayada Mahavana

credit: https://expresselevatortohell.com

Approximately six years ago, that was one evening that I walked past the Lido, a retro cinema nestled in a vibrant Siam Square in Bangkok. A tagline on the movie poster just caught my attention

‘Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met?’

(Oh … people would tell me ‘Wake up to real life, girl.) Wait, I checked on the Rotten Tomatoes that the film was rated 96%. Hmm … I think it’s a kind of solid proof. ( And the movie won may International Film Awards including the 66th Cannes Film Festival for Grand Rail d’Or or Critics Week Viewers category.)

Story

In Mumbai, Ila, an Indian wife, wishes to refresh her relationship with her husband (who is later caught having an affair) by preparing him a lunchbox and having it sent to his office by dabbawala service. Coincidentally, the lunchbox is swapped to Saajan, an accountant widower. Later on, they become friends through a letter attached in the lunchbox, revealing each other’s story as well as a problem in daily life before they develop their feeling for each other.

After I watched the film, the Lunchbox is curated among my forever top lists. Behind the fate-led love story, the movie interestingly underlines the role of food that weaves the relationship among characters in the story. In addition, it takes us to crisscross the way of life and value of Indians, which enables me to consider the similarity of us in a gender role. Here are some topics that I personally found interesting in this movie and want to share about.

It begins with Dabbawalas (that’s how they met)

Dabbas (lunchboxes) are being transported./credit: Giphy

Thousands of dabbas or known to Indians as lunchboxes have been manually picked up and carried by dabbawallas (who carry the lunchbox) at home then transported via train and bicycles to the right recipients at the office.

This opening scene of the whole process of lunchbox delivery services in Mumbai just put me in awe. By the way, I was so curious whether if it is just a set-up or real in India. It is way too unbelievable to send a huge number of lunchboxes and wait until the lunch is eaten and send them back home.

After I finished the film, I was enthusiastic to clarify this point by asking my boss who used to work in India whether this kind of manual delivery system exists there. He said ‘Yes’ and this has become a kind of thing that showed ‘Incredible India’ to me for the first time.

After the movie released four years, I found a short documentary channel: The Great Big Story filming about dabbawalas, concrete evidence to this.

The World’s Best Delivery Service? Lunch in Mumbai

For 129 years, dabbawalas have performed their jobs to feed people across the city and they are only found in Mumbai. Around 200,000 of lunchboxes are averagely sent from a home kitchen to an office punctually and back to the customer’s home on the same day. Through the process of sorting and labelling, it is claimed as the most effective logistic system in the world with 99.99 % no mistakes (However, a swapped lunchbox incident in the film might account for 0.01%, I assume haha). Dabbawalas have been divided into 200 units, consisting of 25 per each to handle all processes. If you want to use their service, it just costs you around 7–9 USD a month.

The reliability of dabbawala system is so legendary that it was studied by employees from FedEx and got published by the Harvard Business School. By the way, without this mistake, Saajan and Ila would not have met each other on the letter and we might not have watched this movie. To me, I am fascinated by the idea of using the dabbawalas as the lead for connecting these two characters. Out of the world’s most reliable system, they are matched to find each other and it links back to a recognizable quote in the movie said by Shaikh that “The wrong train can take you to the right station.” Isn’t that so romantic?

Ila argues with a dabbawala /credit: Movieclips Indie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmItPgeI4Qc
Shaikh talks to Saajan/ credit: https://weheartit.com

Maybe, today try ordering food from Grab or Food Panda, we might bump into someone that could be the one.

P.S. Ritesh Batra, the director, originally intended to make this as a documentary film about dabawallas in Mumbai, but after he listened to many stories while gathering information. It inspired him to develop the story into the movie, the Lunchbox.

Food Connects Us

Ila is cooking Indian food/credit: Giphy

As long as I roughly recall reading from somewhere, ‘All relationship happens and develops around food. A man and a woman dine out on their first date. Parents ask their kids about how is going at school over the dinner table. Girls help her mom in the kitchen.’ Just the same as how the Lunchbox reflects.

Ila, whose husband is distant to her, starts preparing a home-made lunchbox for him in order to reconnect her husband as well as hopefully to refresh their marriage with food. Subsequently, cooking has become a tool for her to socialize with the world out of her home and kitchen, for example, Auntie, a voice persona that Ila consults about the recipe with and Saajan, whom Ila feels comfortable for sharing conversation, seeks advice for her marriage life and, develops some feeling for.

Looking at Saajan, He, who still laments his late wife, becomes a quiet, unfriendly and introvert widower. Saajan makes excuses in order to avoid training Shaikh for several times until Shaikh corners him during the lunchtime. When Saajan shares lunch with him, that brings the wall down between them. Since then, they always join lunch together as learning more about each other from a conversation as well as a relationship that builds up around the eating time.

Ila is reading a letter from Saajan/ credit: www.slantmagazine.com
credit: https://www.bollywoodlife.com

Cooking and Femininity

credit: http://movieplayer.it

A Thai’s saying ‘The Way To A Man’s Heart Is Through His Stomach’ suddenly came across to my mind while I was watching the ‘Lunchbox’.

I agree with this statement based on the idea that everyone has a joy of eating. Delicious food can heal your soul in a bad day. However, cooking is mainly associated with the responsibility of women. I also found an underlying message behind, which frames a traditional role and stereotype of a good wife both in India and Thailand society. Despite our cultural differences, we, as a woman, are similarly related to this value. For Thailand, in the past, a cooking skill among other housework duties is generally addressed an essential qualification for an ideal wife to Thai husbands, but, right now, the attitude alters subject to a changing value and it may depend on individuality.

Likewise, the film portrays that Indian women are still deeply expected to maintain a conservative role. Their life is chained to the house and endless duties of taking care of the family at home like Ila and her mother who is pressured by unhappy marriage life. However, this traditional view has been prevalent. According to an Ipsos Global Trends Survey 2017, 64% of Indians think the main job of Indian women is a role of mother and wife at home over excelling her job at office while the Times of India reports in 2018 that Indian women spend 5.9 hours per day for housework and taking care of children while men at 0.9 hours.

Ila and her daughter/credit: Giphy

However, the movie presents the scene that Shaikh is chopping the vegetable on the train, which might suggest the role of male cooking food for family and changing perspective towards gender role in the society in the future.

Finally, it is not wrong to say that cooking is one way to show your attention and care toward someone. We dedicate our time to prepare all ingredients and adjust the recipe to cook for the perfect flavor to please our beloved. Food is necessary for us to lead our daily life: growing, studying, working, dating, and so on. Beyond physical need, the joy of eating can refresh our soul whether we eat tasty one or join dinner with our beloved or friends. So, it is, to my point of view, not wrong for me to say that we, humans, need food to fill our stomach and go on living as much as we need love as a feast for our soul like Sajaan, Ila, and Shaikh.

credit: Giphy
credit: Giphy

References

Bhattacharya, A. (2017, May 17). Most Indians believe a woman’s sole purpose in life is to be a good wife and mother. Retrieved from https://qz.com/india/985775/most-indians-believe-a-womans-sole-purpose-in-life-is-to-be-a-good-wife-and-mother/.

Blue, L. (n.d.). the lunchbox: Tumblr discovered by Louise Blue. Retrieved from https://weheartit.com/entry/237233013.

Infographic: Indian women do most household work, while men do very little — Times of India. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/indian-women-do-most-household-work-while-men-do-very-little/articleshow/66456334.cms.

McCarthy, N. (2014, February 26). Review: The Lunchbox. Retrieved from https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-lunchbox/.

McNary, D. (2013, September 3). The Lunchbox, a favourite at Telluride Film Festival! Retrieved from https://www.bollywoodlife.com/editors-pick/the-lunchbox-a-favourite-at-telluride-film-festival-261707/.

Predator, P. by T. C. (2018, December 12). ‘The Lunchbox’ (2013): Review. Retrieved from https://expresselevatortohell.com/2015/01/30/the-lunchbox-2013-review/.

The Lunchbox. (2019, September 25). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lunchbox.

The Lunchbox (2014). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lunchbox.

The Lunchbox Movie CLIP — Wrong Address (2014). (2014, February 25). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmItPgeI4Qc.

The Lunchbox: Nimrat Kaur in un’immagine del film: 293136. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://movieplayer.it/foto/the-lunchbox-nimrat-kaur-in-un-immagine-del-film_293136/.

The World’s Best Delivery Service? Lunch in Mumbai. (2017, July 23). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX-0el2wuEU.

Thomke, S. (2014, August 1). Mumbai’s Models of Service Excellence. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2012/11/mumbais-models-of-service-excellence.

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