Lunch Box REVISITED!
LUNCHBOX appears a virtual love story on surface, but to my small mind it appears that it has tackled many other issues like, marriage, virtual relationships, aging and the universal principle of “life goes on”
The movie has been a little harsh on married life or may be that, that is the black truth about it, in today’s time, that we are not willing to accept. There are five circumstances of marriage in the movie, the mans, the lady’s, the auntys, the lady’s parents and the man’s junior’s. The man is a widower, and lives a boring monotonous life, within the social norms, where sorrow and solitude has been brought in his life by death of the spouse. In the second instance, in the marriage of the lady, there is discontentment due to incompatibility, disinterest of spouse and probably infidelity. The aunty is suffering in marriage by having to carryon living with a comatose husband, where the issue is illness and shut doors all round. The lady’s parents are spending old age alone and in poverty and illness, without the expected support from the son, while the married daughter is even willing to request her estranged husband to help her parents financially. And lastly ,the marriage of the man’s junior, where they had to elope and wait to get married till the parents of the girl agreed and that too on the condition that he gets a promotion. The man’s kind gesture of taking premature retirement to create a vacancy for his juniors promotion to see him happy in his marriage,is a message that happiness in married life is becoming rare, and all should strive towards its success and all near and dear ones should extent their support too.
So ,in just a small short story the director has presented the various problems of married life,incompatibility,indifference,infidelity,illness,death,poverty,unavailability of support system, lack of familial or social sanction, just to name a few. In the five marriages in the movies, there was partial happiness in only one! Are they trying to threaten the institute of marriage and discourage people from getting married or rather to accept the present conventional form of matrimony!
The second issue highlighted is of virtual friendship. Pen pals were known in yesteryears also, but today thanks to the internet and many social sites, virtual friendship and relationships are becoming very common and are here to stay. Chatting, net pals, blogging and now virtual friendships and even relationships are sequential progression of the same phenomenon-reaching out and fighting inner loneliness. There are several reasons and aspects to these
Human mind is much more complex than it appears and even a simple soul can have innumerable thoughts within the mind that even the closest cannot read. Each person has innumerable suppressed desires, fantasies and imaginations, some good, some bad and some ugly, and bound by the norms of family, upbringing, education and society, most of these are kept well within. But most, today, want the real inner self to breathe, and come out. People are desperate to give went to their feelings and be their real, normal selves without being judged..Net and virtual relationships are the best platform for this.
In today’s time ,when time is always at premium and distances killing, Net provides the best opportunity for global interaction with innumerable people without any pretences and any fears of rejection.Net is above the shams of social strata’s and the battle of one-up-man ship. It can be the best punching bag and the biggest stress buster and above the problems of status maintenance and the shams of socializing. These are the shouts of the inner self and the warning to the parents, spouses, society and the self imposed guardians of morality that the rigid and narrow vision needs introspection and a reawakening.
Most of these virtual friendships don’t become real, as people don’t meet most of their net pals, and even if they meet, the friendship or relationship ends with the first meet, Often people are scared of converting the virtual friendships to reality, as then the very purpose and excitement of the unknown goes. Most wonder how can someone get attracted and attached to an unknown person. The reality is that the person in desperation clings to the first person he or she comes across and gives them an imaginary desired identity. It’s not drifting towards an unknown person but drifting away from a known person!
Aging is another issue that has been very subtly dealt with. The man tells the lady, that when he was getting ready to go to meet her, for their first, in person encounter, he had a feeling around him, that reminded him of his grandfather. He is also shaken out from his slumber, when a young man in the local train addresses him as uncle! This is what usually happens with us. Most of us age, while from within we want to keep the child within alive and stay young. We feel and think young and are usually stimulated by things that are young or related to youth, like experimenting, taking risks, enjoying and living life to the fullest. The inner self fails to keep pace with the body in aging and usually continues to stay young .The age, appointment, status, social commitments and familial responsibilities often force a person to age prematurely but the heart stays young and in few cases, even revolts!
And lastly what I saw in the movie as message, was my very strong belief, nothing, no one and no incidence in life is bigger than LIFE itself, and in all circumstances, the show should go on and life should continue as it was! The man returns back from his hometown, the lady is back to her routine of sending daughter to school, cooking and chatting with aunty, aunty is continuing for over 15 years, even after her husband slipped into coma. but the strongest message to this effect was from the lady’s mother. With the husband lying dead, at home, she has no inhibitions of expressing to her daughter, that she was hungry and wants to eat aloo paratha……..people may find it unacceptable for a recently widowed lady to talk of food, but that is the frank reality of life…………the basic needs of life remain unchanged and need to be entertained and addressed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
So, besides being just a good movie, LUNCHBOX has beautifully tackled many more relevant issues of life in present times