Lunch Box
Lunch Boxes are not only for carrying the food items , many times they are source of many swift things like taste,concern ,love etc etc. which will melt in the tongue and goes deep down to the heart. From the two room flat of Mumbai till the busy government office canteen ,the story of Dabba have a place every where in the world;it is the beauty of the ‘Lunch Box” of Rithesh Batra.
Ila , who hurriedly gives a long list of ‘no s” to her daughter and sends her to the school ,comes back to the kitchen and prepares the special delicacies which have to be send to her husband through the Dabbawala. She expects to end her husband’s ignorance to her by pleasing his palette.
To Sajan Fernandez who is fed up amidst the piles of files and numbers in the government office, the Dabbawala gave a very different world of taste ,which he was not familiar with.That Dabba was wrongly served.
Ila was taken aback to see the empty Dabba which came back. That was unusual.But to her , who decorated herself for her husband,he did not say anything. After a lengthy silence Ila asked how was the food that day. He said the Aloo Paratha was good. Aloo Paratha?? She gulped the question.Next Day to the unknown who made the dabba empty she send her husband’s favourite Paneer Masala and a small note. Reply came as the salt was little upfront in the curry.
Small small stories from home, even smelling some one else’s odour on her husband’ s shirt to wash,all filled in her notes.Otherwise through her questions he was finding answers for his on questions.
Not only for Ila but for Sajan too ,who is about to retire in a months time . it was like filling the uninterested life with blooms and the world around was becoming beautiful.;viewers can feel it. How a well knit script can sublime the visuals to the viewer,is getting exposed here. Ila’s house,Sajan’s office,mainly the canteen, busy local train ,like that there are only few places are there in the movie.Some times , the common thinking that it is the flooding visuals that makes a movie rich, goes insignificant in this movie. “Lunch box” does not compresses life into a story.It is flowing beyond the screen.
The mentors of Lunch box are successful in making a story which can be turned as immoral , has been made as beautiful as a melody, and pure as a prayer and graceful.In that sense, Rathesh Batra’s first movie ,is one which every Indian can carry to any where in the world. Even in versatility of tastes from country to country ,it can melt in anyone’s palette.
Lunch Box
