Ritesh Batra, who had made short films, The Morning Ritual, Gareeb Nawaz ki Taxi and Cafe Regular, Cairo, started researching for a documentary on the famous Lunchbox delivery system of Mumbai, dabbawala, known for their efficiency, however after spending a week with them in 2007, he got to know of many interesting personal stories they would overhear while waiting outside an apartment. Shruti Bapna as Mehrunissa, Shaikh's wife.
He explains how young and beautiful she looked, while surmising that he is too old for her and advising her to move on. Upon receiving an empty lunchbox the next day, Saajan writes back to the dejected Ila and apologises, saying that he did arrive and saw her from a distance but couldn't approach her. Ila then offers to meet in person at a popular food joint, but at the appointed time Saajan doesn't turn up. Saajan writes back suggesting that the two move there together. In one of the lunchbox letters, she suggests moving to Bhutan where the cost of living is much less than in India. At one point, Saajan saves Shaikh's job by covering for his blatant mistakes on pay orders and he also becomes his best man at his wedding with Mehrunissa.Īt home, Ila finds out that her husband is having an affair and she begins to give up hope on her marriage. Saajan and Shaikh gradually get to know each other better and strike a close friendship as well. An exchange of the messages sent back and forth with the lunches ignites a friendship between the two, as they share memories and events of their own individual lives.Īt work, Saajan is tasked with training his replacement, Shaikh, an orphan whose incompetence initially annoys Saajan, who is already socially distant since his wife's death. Ila eventually realizes the mistake and with the advice of her neighbour Auntie (a term of respect, rather than her actual aunt) living in the apartment above her, writes a letter to Saajan about the mix up and places it in the lunchbox (along with her husband's favourite meal) the next day. Due to a mix-up, the lunchbox Ila prepares for her husband gets delivered, instead, to Saajan Fernandes, a widower who is about to retire from his job as an accountant. She sends the lunchbox through the famous Mumbai dabbawalas, an intricate system that picks up and delivers lunches from restaurants or homes to people at work. Bolstered with winning performances from Irrfan Khan (Life of Pi) and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, first-time director Ritesh Batra has reworked the classic ingredients of the ‘meet cute’ romantic comedy into a disarmingly original concoction to tantalise the taste-buds and warm the heart.Ila is a young wife seeking her husband Rajeev's attention and looking for ways to put romance back into her marriage, one of which is to cook delicious lunches for him. But this deceptively simple set-up belies an intelligent, beguiling and understated (no Bollywood songs) drama packed with delicious looking food and delightful insight. So begins a letter-based romance in the vein of such classics as Shop Around the Corner. A lonely Mumbai office worker receives the wrong packed lunch after a mix-up by the city’s famous dabbawala couriers, and is so impressed by its wonderful cuisine that he returns a note to its sender - a neglected housewife trying to rouse her husband’s affections. Mismatched lunchboxes lead to an unlikely romance in the Indian drama that’s enchanted festival audiences around the globe, winning an audience award at Cannes and a Best Film nomination at the London Film Festival.
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