“The Lunchbox”

Viewing a film is a lovely way to learn and to connect with the world. It is never a waste of time. “The wrong train can get you to the right station” so to speak. And this line from first time director Ritesh Batra’s movie “The Lunchbox” speaks to lives lived.

Middle class Mumbai is the setting with its crowded streets,tiny quarters and old prejudices. The romance is epistolary,the smell of worn clothes revealing and the white bows of hair braids disarming.This film seems a tad longer than its one hour and forty- five minutes,but women’s household duties and men’s accounting chores are as tedious as getting from one end of the city to another. But this is not a film about the messiness of travel. “The Lunchbox”is a serious film about the way one chooses to spend one’s emotional time.

Humor is here in theidentification of old adages like “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” and in the time -saving vegetable cutting techniques of one bus rider.

View this film and see the highest grossing art film in India’s history and learn about the “dabbawallas” and their 125 year system of food delivery. Connect with the huge, lonely, and warm eyes of Irrfan Khan while you deplore the self-important and neglectful husband and father of far too many world households. Enjoy the subtle social commentary of this film and tell me what you think.