One of those films that just lets you sit on a rocking chair and feeds you dollops of food for thought:
- "You are young, Ila; you can still dream."
- "I do not have a mother; am an orphan, Sir. But still it feels good to say 'my mother used to say...'"
The latter line is a truth spoken, as a matter of fact, by Shaikh to Fernandes in a local train while coming back from work! Perhaps, the only scene where Nawazuddin surpasses Irrfan's acting prowess in the blink of an eye. For a moment, that line brought a lump to my throat and welled up my eyes... Shaikh just immortalized himself.
It is one of those rare films that eases into your life and walks away without you being hurt, depressed, or happy. It just leaves you gasping for freshness and innocence that it left behind. You want to have a cook and lover like Ila, a friend and co-worker like Shaikh, and most of all, a neighbour like the aunty who lives above Ila's flat...
If ever there is a best supporting actor award for an actor who never appears on screen, it should be given to the aunty who stays above her... Like the invisible, but reliable and approachable God, she helps Ila in cooking and listening to music and also gives her free advice whenever she needs it.
From having an open-ended ending (or rather, a new beginning) to indirectly showing the three stages of marriage, the movie very intelligently and touchingly covers all its characters' lives in transitions... Fernandes transitioning retirement, Shaikh transitioning marriage after elopement and love, Ila's mother transitioning her husband's inevitable death, Ila transitioning her own true calling, and the neighbourhood aunty transitioning her husband's coma state (poetically linked to an ever-rotating ceiling fan)...
No matter how 'error-proof' the dabbawalas' procedure and mechanism might be, a single .1 rate of error is enough to change somebody's destiny.
Fernandes and Ila love and live happily ever after. And she still serves him lunch everyday.
By the way, I too need such a lunchbox everyday!
