The Lunchbox

I am tired of bad movies. So are many others like me who have grown exhausted with the plethora of crass dialogues, rise and fall of Khans, unnecessary sex and raunchy item girls with breasts of questionable size. But The Lunchbox gave a delicious first look. Also its cast and the reliance they have gained through previous works provided the necessary encouragement without which it is rather a risk these days to venture hindi movies. All in all, an acute sense of inertia-of-rest that I feel only for college every morning coupled with a break required from not doing anything provided the last push I needed to catch an early show.

Sometimes, as the movie suggests, even a wrong train can take you to the right destination. Destination, on a philosophical level, can be the cause as well as effect of one's destiny. And 'a person's destiny', as Murakami reminds us, 'is something you look back at afterwards, not something to be known before.' Thus when Ila hestitates to thank the person who, instead of her husband, received the lunch she made with love and gave it back with heartfelt appreciation reflecting from licked-up steel containers, Deshpande Aunty tells her to give it a go. She says, 'Ek thank you to banta hain na!' The first step to live a happy fulfilling life is in the appreciation of minute gestures.

Ila is one of the myriad faces of a city that lives less through time and more through its work. Mumbai with its early morning school-goers, its unique dabba-system, coming and going of trains and offices populated with brittle, yellow files is a city that has no time to rest. Yet there are people like Ila who has a moment to spare, to chat with her well-meaning neighbour, to peep through the window to admire the last glimpse of a dabba she prepares everyday with immeasurable care. Ila stops for she wants to get noticed, for she is one of those few who have been gifted with vision, not just sight. Yet the hustle-bustle of the huge city and its important works forgets Ila and all her smallness to inflict upon her a solitude that is actually its own.

What do we do when we wish to let go of something we cannot release ourselves from? We share. And thats what they do, Ila and Saajan, lost faces in the map of a city that tends to forget. They share the empty spaces around them with paneer kofta and little anecdotes from otherwise mundane days. They share the trials and tribulation of each new day, episodes of dead wives and sick fathers, once watched television soaps. Each one puts in the lunchbox a letter with their share of smell for the day while the other receives and sends it back with his own. Happiness, for people like us, is a matter of state. It grows and shrinks without complaints, in whatever room the state in which we are now, allots for it. Ila and Saajan remind us that as they find happiness which now demands just an acknowledgement of its little endeavours and simple goodness--- not a second child from a marriage too futile to love, not the excitements of a new romance. Friendship, as one said, is love without wings. And when we have too many strings to keep us from flying, the wisps of a friendship becomes enough newness to look forward to.

Also Shaikh in his simple charming ways puts forward a face of the city that is engrossed in work even without its competitive machinations.

Bhutan has formulated Gross National Happiness but for Ila and Sajan it is the journey that is all there to it. For people who can let go of cumulative measurements of mirth and sorrow, the journey, or at least the promise of one, can suffice for everything--- the meters to proceed, the steps to retreat, the new cities to be admired and the old alleys to be looked back at before leaving. In the end, life is not how fast we advanced but the count of smiles we received in every step we took. For people like them are not made for big achievements or even insignificant ones. It is their sole duty to remember forgotten stories and to teach how we celebrate life, and all the little big things, by giving a moment to each one of them. Perhaps that is the reason why Ila folds the letter which carried the road to Bhutan, to remember the story of how she has once moved even when movement and change had become empty vessels. For sometimes when we remember old stories, we get hope to build new ones.

This is not a movie review. Yet to sum up in a line the acting was impeccable. The director won my heart not just by showing the essentials but also by letting go of inessentials. The voice of Deshpande aunty, the feet of Ila's ailing father were enough to capture all that they had to add to the essence of Ila. The movie has all the right ingredients along with the perfect blending. In the end it leaves you sad, happy and hungry with the lingering sense of something vital that we have put aside for a long time.

What is it? Well I would say the simplicty of malai kofta and dum aloo.

It progresses like a well-written novel and for an aspiring author, one can know where the goodness of a good movie lies.