At one juncture in Ritesh Batra’s bitter-sweet Bollywood film, The Lunchbox, which opens in Canada on March 21, the main character, Saajan Fernandes (Irrfan Khan), muses, “Sometimes, the wrong train will take you to the right address.”
The observation is apt.
Just look at what happens when Saajan’s boxed lunch, punctually delivered to him at his office in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) by a white-jacketed courier, is sent to the wrong address and the wrong person.
Passion and romance bloom.
The scrumptious lunch that pleases Saajan, a lonely widower and a insurance company claims adjuster soon to retire, was cooked to perfection by Ila (Nimrat Kaur), a neglected housewife who gets constant advice, some unsolicited, from her unseen upstairs neighbor and “auntie,” Mrs. Deshpande (Bahrati Achrekar).
Ila’s meal should have been delivered to her husband by one of the 5,000 dabbawallahs in Mumbai who transport hot meals around a bustling city by commuter train and bicycle. Instead, due to a rare error in a unique meal delivery system that Harvard University scholars have studied as a model of efficiency, the four-course feast lands on Saajan’s wooden desk. He devours it, not leaving a trace of it in any of the steel canisters.
The misguided delivery has unintended consequences.
Ila, thinking that her ungrateful husband has developed a new-found appreciation for her culinary skills, places a thank-you note inside a canister for him to read the following day. The meal, with the attached note, is accidentally delivered to Saajan yet again. He reads it with mounting interest, replies with alacrity and a correspondence is born.
As the increasingly confidential letters and notes fly back and forth, the pair develop a virtual relationship. Buoyed by the connection he has established with Ila, the normally dour Saajan seems like a changed man. Suddenly, there is a smile on his face.
Shaikh (Nawazuddin Sidiqui), the obsequious clerk who grates on Saajan’s nerves and whom he’s supposed to train as his replacement, comments on his transformation and glowing demeanor.
Saajan, who’s indeed happy, refers to Ila as his “girlfriend.” When she proposes that they meet in a restaurant, contentment washes over Saajan. Are his days as a sad, solitary bachelor finally over?
The Lunchbox, Batra’s first, is an endearing, old-fashioned film.
The characters are straight arrows who seem unencumbered by the complexities of modern life. Saajan’s and Ila’s romantic interlude matures without the benefit of a cell phone or a single e-mail. The dabbawallahs, clad in white jackets and white caps, are a throwback to a simpler era when wives and husbands insisted on home-cooked meals.
The lead actor, Irrfan Khan, changes before our eyes, becoming less sullen and more outgoing as the correspondence intensifies. Nimrat Kaur, plain yet attractive, is convincing as a woman scorned by a neglectful, philandering husband. Nawazuddin Sidiqui is frenetically fine as a pest who turns out to be a real friend.
The Lunchbox, in Hindi with English subtitles, adds luster to the Bollywood movie industry.