I watched The Lunchbox in my early twenties… I understood it in my thirties.

​When you realise that Irrfan Khan turned down Interstellar for The Lunchbox…

It sounds like an unbelievable decision. Watching it again after all these years, I finally understood why.

Saajan Fernandes is a middle-aged widower. The kind of ordinary man we’ve all seen around us. He gets annoyed when kids play cricket outside his house and refuses to return the ball. He’s spent over three decades in the same 9-to-5 job, carrying the same routine that countless Mumbaikars do…with the dependable dabbawala service as a part of everyday life.

He’s cynical, withdrawn and content living inside his own little world. He even tries to avoid the responsibility of training his replacement. His monotonous life changes because of something that should never have happened: the dabbawalas make that one-in-a-million mistake and deliver someone else’s lunchbox to him.

That lunchbox belongs to Ila, a homemaker trying to win back her husband’s affection through her cooking. It reminds me of what Master Oogway says in Kung Fu Panda, “There are no accidents.”

When Ila realises the mix-up, she doesn’t complain to the dabbawalas. Instead, she slips a note into the lunchbox. Saajan replies. And just like that, the lunchbox becomes a medium through which two strangers begin sharing parts of their lives.

The beauty of the film lies in those exchanges. They write about loneliness, grief, regrets, hope, food, philosophy and the little tragedies that shape ordinary lives. As the letters continue, Ila also comes to terms with the fact that her husband is having an affair.

One subtle detail I absolutely loved is that Ila writes to Saajan in Hindi, while Saajan replies in English. Language exists, but somehow never becomes a barrier.

The Lunchbox is one of those rare films where you can feel the chemistry between two characters even when they barely share the same frame.

They do get an opportunity to meet. They plan to. But they don’t.

And somewhere in that moment, Saajan becomes painfully aware of the age difference between them. It’s less about romance and more about the weight of reality finally catching up with him.

Saajan, who had resigned himself to a lonely existence, slowly begins changing because of these letters. Ila eventually decides to look for him, only to find that he has already left his job.

The film ends without giving us the answers we expect. Ila sells her jewellery and plans to move to Bhutan with her daughter. Saajan, in “the final scene” is seen with the dabbawalas, trying to find Ila.

I do not think the movie could have ended on a better note than this…

The ending isn’t really about whether they met. It’s about the fact that they both choose movement over stagnation. They choose themselves. They finally gather the courage to change lives that had settled into unhappiness.

When I watched it in my early twenties, I wanted the Hollywood resolution…for them to meet at the cafe, board the train together and defy the odds. Watching it now, I realise that Saajan getting on that train to find her and Ila packing her bags for Bhutan is the triumph. The tragedy was never that they might miss each other; the tragedy was the slow death of staying exactly where they were. Whether they eventually find each other almost becomes secondary. You leave believing they’ll figure life out somehow.

There’s a dialogue in Masaan:

“संगम दो बार आना चाहिए।”

I think that applies to films too.

I watched The Lunchbox for the first time in my early twenties. I appreciated it then, but I don’t think I truly understood it. Watching it again more than a decade later, I found myself noticing the silences, the pauses, the conversations left unfinished and everything that existed beyond its wonderfully familiar Mumbai.

P.S. Shaikh deserves all the love.

Standing out in a film alongside Irrfan Khan is no easy feat, yet Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Shaikh captures your attention. He’s warm, awkward, endlessly talkative and full of life. If you look around, you’ll probably find a Shaikh in your own workplace too.

He deserves a blog of his own.

But today belongs to Saajan and Ila and to everyone who has ever felt stuck in a life they never meant to keep living, yet still found the courage to imagine that it could change.