The Lunchbox, directed by Ritesh Batra

SHAIKH
And my mother always says
‘Sometimes the wrong train can take you to the right station’. 

SAAJAN
Your mother? You told me you were an orphan.

It is with tender irony that the narrative premise of The Lunchbox’s story is itself brought on the wrong train of a harmless lie.  Set in Mumbai, The Lunchbox tells the story of a lunchbox wrongly delivered by a dabbawallah to Saajan, an office clerk approaching retirement. The lunchbox, prepared with care by Ila, a young housewife, for her husband – in the hope of retrieving his lost affection – creates an unexpected connection with Saajan, as they start corresponding with each other through folded notes.

These notes, placed inside the lunchbox, provide the dramatic drive of the story and its reflective interludes. Thanks to them, both characters question and consider the other’s life and their own – sharing their thoughts with a stranger, in the safe knowledge that they are being listened to.

The movie’s beauty resides in its exploration, with humour and affection, of what it means to be present to oneself and to another. Those who appear to be present reveal themselves to be fundamentally absent, as is the case of Ila’s indifferent husband, and her dying father who recedes into his own suffering.  By contrast, some of the most meaningful relationships are with people who are unseen or unknown: with Saajan of course, but also with Ila’s neighbour who lives on the floor above and whom we know only by her loud calls through the window.

The lunchbox is the panacea which the movie offers the characters in their isolation and their grieving. It may not seem like much but it does take them – and us – closer to the right station.