ON #SPEECH AND #EXPRESSION

People once wrote things in brackets to de-emphasize certain text (only for it to draw more attention to itself). The same is happening to the #hashtag. 

Consider the following paragraph: 

A man with a tuft of grey hair is the only one in a cinema hall. He is sitting in the second row on a seat right next to the stairs. He has just landed after an event of great personal significance. But then any intense emotion can only survive until airport security gets its hands on you. And so he sits, barely aware of what he is feeling, in his personal theater, waiting to watch a film reel he had just given the operator asking him to roll when ready. The lights dim. Music is queued. It is a violin leading into a somber sort of symphony, which is perhaps a reflection of his own state of mind. On the screen are visuals of people kissing, in black and white. They appear to be from old movies, presumably from the man’s childhood. He watches them with great amazement, as though it was the first time he is seeing them. For some reason (and he had a shrewd idea why), the visuals were affecting him. Deeply. Very, very deeply. 

I have just attempted to narrate to you the first two seconds of the famous kissing montage from Tornatore’s ‘Cinema Paradiso’ (1989). My writing potential can certainly be brought to question where the poignancy of the description is concerned. Nonetheless, there is no denying that the beauty of watching Salvatore (Toto) break down rests completely on the fact that it was shot on camera as Ennio Morricone tapped his wand on it. By writing it in a paragraph, I only communicated the futility of the exercise: of trying to express in words the beauty of images. You can watch the sequence here.

I write this in reaction to the Fallon-Timberlake parody of the #hashtag, which is currently trending on social media thanks to the many #hashtags taking it forward. It is a tidy video. One can see that their comic timing is impeccable and, as partners, they complement each other. The idea is simple. They simulate an internet conversation offline, physically representing the devices that are, more or less, sacrosanct to the internet as the medium of expression. It is no different than talking about the parentheses, or the now-popular “quote-unquote” which has been co-opted and has almost become exclusive to the spoken word. I am sure there are sketches online that parody the “quote-unquote” as well. I am sure they have done their rounds on the internet, trending thanks to people “self-referencing.” 

As an empathizer of the #hashtag phenomenon, I must say that I was quite amused by what Fallon and Timberlake did. If I am disappointed, it is not with them. If you watch closely, it is not just the video that is trending on the internet, but also a secondary source (Gizmodo) that has published the video in an article titled “Justin Timberlake shows us how dumb we sound when we use hashtags.” It is not even the judgment call that I am disappointed with – for the author says (and I quote) 

That pound sign—which was probably once the least pressed button on a phone's dial pad—has now infiltrated every single social network, every form of text communication and will eventually, override the spoken English language. 

What I am disappointed with is popular misconception. I am also disappointed at the fact that the parody could unanimously be construed as criticism. If either Fallon or Timberlake had wanted to ‘criticize’ the #hashtag phenomenon, they would have had the sense to do it via text. The moment they chose to film a video on it, they had instantly steered clear of anything but oblique impact at best, for it is not the #hashtag phenomenon they were discussing anymore, but the absurdity in the act of co-opting it in the spoken word. In other words, they are forecasting a time when the #hashtag will creep into our speech much like the parentheses and the “quote-unquote,” legitimized by Presidents and Prime Ministers and motivational speakers alike. 

I once fought someone to the hilt (trust me, I did) on his dismissal of the #hashtag. I must admit that my standing up for the #hashtag was in part standing up for myself, much like how his argument rang hollow with scathing personal intolerance, which he was not mindful of. I find myself in those waters where internet memes are concerned. I am saddened by the fact that creativity on the internet has become a random assortment of references. Nothing seems to excite us as much as references do, be it historic, cultural or political, where the subtler and more obscure the reference, the cleverer it is considered to be. 

But then I also know I have to make my peace with it. It is not up to me to define how the human race communicates. Once upon a time they wrote patterns on a wall. Now we are using #hashtags. I do believe, however, that creative expression can only be as robust as the medium. We are simultaneously constrained and nourished by the medium we choose to express in. For instance, this software which tries to imitate the style of Jackson Pollock is only drawing attention to how absurd it is to try re-creating his work in the paradigm of virtual graphic design. Likewise, making a video on #spokenhashtag, first and foremost, draws attention to the act itself, much before offering a comment on the #hashtag phenomenon (which it offers very slightly, in the kind of things Fallon puts in a #hashtag, as compared to the act of putting things in #hashtags itself). Also, this leads me to conclude that it would have been much clearer and a lot more reassuring had the Gizmodo author titled his post "Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake show us how stupid it would sound if we were to use Hashtags in our speech."

But I am sure Fallon and Timberlake, and the author on Gizmodo already knew this. For they are wise men.

THE LUNCHBOX: OH, OH, OH, IT'S MAGIC, YOU KNOW?

DIRECTED BY: RITESH BATRA 

STARRING: IRRFAN KHAN, NIMRAT KAUR, NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI, NAKUL VAID, YASHWI PUNEET NAGAR with BHARATI ACHREKAR, DENZIL SMITH and LILETTE DUBEY 

“Making 8 references to other movies is not writing a review,” a text message said, almost 24 hours after I had published my first ‘review’ of Ritesh Batra’s ‘The Lunchbox.’ You can read that ‘review’ here. Or you can scroll down a little and that will be the first thing you see after this attempted, almost independent take on ‘The Lunchbox’ where I shall pretend that it is the only film made on the planet, and that the joy of having watched ‘The Lunchbox’ had little to do with the fact that it reminded me of so many films and concepts I respected, if not completely liked. Additionally, I also believe that my obsession with the film’s themes of loneliness had rendered me aloof as well where I appear to have failed to grasp the bigger picture. With this second review of mine, I hope to fill all those gaps. 

Let me start with this one bone I didn’t pick to completion in my last review: its title. ‘The Lunchbox’ is an anglicized title for a film that manages to capture a little bit of rustic reality, even though it is mostly in the paradigm of borderline gimmickry. This does not render it insincere. The film exaggerates to make a point, but each exaggeration shows visibly the efforts of someone trying to sober it down. Then why ‘The Lunchbox’? Is this some ‘Ship of Theseus’ stunt of arming the movie with an over-simplified title that allows for a moral as well as socioeconomic high ground where one sits with a clipboard and makes observations? If there is a reason why I felt a little dissatisfied with the title, it is because I felt it could have incorporated some of the magic the film brims with. 

But then this is not to say ‘The Lunchbox’ is not a magical title. You see its relevance in the opening sequence. You see it every moment from then on. The opening sequence shows the Dabbawallahs of Mumbai engaged in the tedious task of transporting a gazillion lunchboxes to offices across the city. They pedal their respective cycles on a dotted line they have drawn for themselves inside their head. They pass their time singing the same song. In fact, the same camera angle is used to show this one particular Dabbawallah parking his bicycle below Ila’s apartment, following which there is a shot of a lunchbox kept at her doorstep – almost on the same place on the doormat, as though there is an X that marks the spot. In course of their unremarkable routine, they are magicians unaware of the weight of the material they carry to and carry back from the claims department in the insurance firm where a certain Saajan Fernandez (Irrfan Khan) works. 

‘The Lunchbox’ is thus both banality and an unconscious, gradual drift towards the remarkable, which also gets encapsulated in routine. To the Dabbawallah, the lives of Ila (Nimrat Kaur) and Saajan are no different from the lunchboxes he delivers every day. Even for Saajan and Ila, the transition from nonchalant widower or mind-numb housewife to “lover in despair” is almost unnoticeable. In making this shift, there is not a moment that they stray from the dull and dreary world of calculators, office files, kitchen sink, brinjals or the mid-day meal service, even. Confined to the same machine that seems to offer no respite, they find their ‘out’. Their lives then move slowly into a domain of magical reality, where – on the face of it – a lunchbox seems to have a conversation with them, trading witticisms in toneless narratives that offer a sort of Brechtian window into emotion. To add to that is Ila’s conversation with this unseen woman from upstairs. These are instances of ‘magic’ in the very reality that threatens to make prisoners of them; maybe even does. 

In all his attempts to communicate with this unknown letter-writer woman who is so disenchanted with her life that she can’t even bring herself to grieve for it, Saajan completely ignores and rejects the advances of this genuine and downright forthright individual by the name of Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui, absolutely delightful). Middle-aged government officials are so trapped in their own heads they need a letter in a lunchbox to open themselves to meaningful companionship right in front of them. There is an absolutely stunning sequence in the middle of the film when Saajan, from being the man who literally ran away from this pest of an individual, backs him to the brink when he owns up for a mistake he had committed. What follows is a conversation between benefactor and beneficiary, perhaps the first time they ‘speak’ to each other. Shaikh, the man with his life ahead of him, speaks with such conviction that he is unapologetic even with his apologies, staring right into the eyes of a man who simply can’t stare back. Saajan has his fair share of things to say, some even in anger that he rediscovers when exasperation seems to not suffice anymore. But never does he look into Shaikh’s eyes. Him, Shaikh, the filmmaker and the viewer all know that his reading glasses are not the excuse. How has it happened that one gets so trapped within oneself that one cannot even look straight when talking to someone? This is blindfolds we’re talking about – not even blinkers. 

By distinguishing between Saajan and Shaikh, we are not distinguishing between people but draw attention to the time that has passed between them. For all we know, Shaikh could exactly be what Saajan would have been twenty years before. His marriage photograph will have been no different, save for the ceremony. The film actually goes a step ahead from this deduction and tries to tell us their lives are not so very different right now, let alone twenty years earlier. Shaikh is about to be married. Saajan fancies himself to have a ‘girlfriend’. This is not to say that he feels youthful. Quite the opposite, as illustrated in a lot of scenes. This is to say, however, that he is but in a loop that he has gotten accustomed to that ‘growing old’ hasn’t really struck and never will strike him. It will be but a moment when he stands in his bathroom smelling an old man in the shower that he will have to tell himself he is, after all, a man on the verge of retirement. 

‘The Lunchbox’ is a magic portal which enables the two deep sleepers in Saajan and Ila to wake up from their slumber and cope with a reality that seems to have redefined itself for them. Ila then hastens to go ahead and make sense of this amorphous relationship she shares with this letter-writer, even as she complains to him that her husband has an affair. Saajan shakes off his dead wife to give life a shot. These people unknowingly escape the realms of the sacrosanct as ‘morality’ takes a step back to guide them through this newly-erected structure, quite like the autorickshaw that takes Saajan through the city he barely knows anymore. Again, this is not to say that they have escaped the paradigm of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. This is to say they suddenly discover themselves in the middle of this newfound routine, where it is usual for them to pine for each other. This is not trivialization. This is reinforcement of the overarching metaphor of the lunchbox, where the very idea of ‘respite’ is yet another clueless confinement. 

You can visibly see the fight to keep away from abstraction, staying faithful to ground reality even as ‘The Lunchbox’ is extensively a film about concepts and, in a way, abstraction. The film employs both the easiest and the hardest devices to attempt the same. The easiest is the treatment – long shots, shaky camera, close-ups, shots that outlast their lifetimes in a desperate attempt to speak to the viewer. Yet it does not try to be picturesque. It does not pack the wonderment and marvel of an outsider in picturing various locales. What is attempted instead is the dryness and banality in an everyday observer’s tiresome commute, entertained by nothing but the coincidences of life like when the children who beg for alms on the train sing a song you had listened to on the radio the night before – a song from a film that has the same title as your name. To the viewer, it is a gimmick. But then it is an attempt on the writer’s part to offer the character what the film both gifts and denies him equally: respite. 

The hardest device is the acting. You can choose to brand a film with your pet concept, shoot postcards and ride on so-called intellectual merit. Or you can find the right people who would flesh your characters out enough at least so they don’t look like props. ‘The Lunchbox’ burdens its actors with the responsibility of having to keep their awkwardness, their confused state of suffering and the little moments when they break from these traps, both when they are by themselves, as well as in their interactions. It is hard to say which is more demanding. Nimrat Kaur is beautiful as the bewildered Ila who has to look like she has been taught how to feel but never could quite bring herself to. Irrfan Khan has not quite shed his swagger, and is almost typecast in a character who takes a higher ground throughout the film, even in self-deprecation. There are scenes where the star in him threatens to outshine the warm glow of the actor, but in all, Khan’s performance is pleasant rather than problematic. And Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the man who has played as many different roles as the films he has acted in, gives us yet another. 

‘The Lunchbox’ is a film that is sincere in its efforts to do justice to its own concepts as well as the socioeconomic realities it sets itself up in. It is an affecting film that gives the viewer a sense of validation for his/her own wait for life to happen; for magic that will occur to you. Even and especially at its quietest, most awkward moments, it speaks for you, your numbness, your predicament. It is not meant to be intellectualized, for it does not have the hand of a gourmet chef who wants a five-star rating on his recipe. It bears instead the care of a housewife who only cares for acknowledgement, whose face can both light up and fall at the sight of an empty lunchbox. Needless to say, she earns yours.

THE LUNCHBOX: "LONELINESS SIMULTANEOUSLY INCREASED AND DECREASED"

DIRECTED BY: RITESH BATRA 

STARRING: IRRFAN KHAN, NIMRAT KAUR, NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI, NAKUL VAID, YASHWI PUNEET NAGAR with BHARATI ACHREKAR, DENZIL SMITH and LILETE DUBEY 

‘The Lunchbox’ was the second of my ‘coming to terms with things’ trilogy for today. The first one was the Josh Radnor film ‘Liberal Arts’ which I watched for the second time. And I made my way back from the cinema hall thinking I might have to revisit Fatih Akin’s ‘The Edge of Heaven’ later which would be the third film in that sequence. I might go ahead and watch it. I might not. I thought I’d write what I thought about ‘The Lunchbox’ down first. You can read what I thought about ‘Liberal Arts’ here, as written the first time I watched it. Not much has changed of what I felt about it. A little more clarity, a little more fondness. The academic observations have remained more or less the same. 

Surprisingly, the film I was most reminded of when I watched ‘The Lunchbox’ is neither of the films I have mentioned above. Nor was it ‘Manhattan’, Woody Allen’s biggest shot at optimism if he ever showed a little bit. The film I was most reminded of was this Marathi film called ‘Masala’ which was my ‘pick of the festival’ at OSIAN last year. ‘Masala’ captured a suburban couple’s pursuit of ‘the better life’, with a defining climactic moment where both of them separately find contentment in the realization that they have all they can ask for: each other. ‘The Lunchbox’ ends in mutual hopefulness (or a lack thereof) in the fact that the one they are looking for is looking for them as well. They might or might not find each other. Yet they find contentment in the fact that the wheels are in motion. 

But were the wheels ever idle? In answering this question, we find ourselves having to play by the presuppositions that either/all of these films bring to the table. Or rather, the overarching presupposition that the only thing palatable about life is flux. Not motion, but flux. This is best exemplified in Prof. Hoberg’s (Richard Jenkins) comment in ‘Liberal Arts’ when he says “Any place you don’t leave is a prison.” We are having to accord ourselves to this one presupposition that to be stuck in the same routine all these characters find themselves in is the same as being ‘trapped’. It is not hard to align oneself with that notion. On the one hand, it is pretty characteristic of my scheme of things, where I stand in life and my approach to life and living in general. On the other hand, there is also the “dirty little secret” (again, in Prof. Hoberg’s words) that no one in the world actually feels like an adult. You either come to terms with the fact that your life is and will continue to be unremarkable, or you refuse to do so. 

There is nothing wrong with Saajan Fernandez’ (Irrfan Khan, with less of his swagger) life. He is a widower claiming early retirement from his position as a clerk in the claims department of an insurance firm. He has no one for company. Does that make him lonely? I don’t think so. If anything, Saajan has reconciled with the fact that life can get no better. He is like Bruce Wayne in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, having reached a point where life can be no different. He has reached his cruise altitude. All that is left is to go full-on autopilot: which is precisely what he does. 

This is one step beyond loneliness. To be lonely is to grieve that one isn’t getting one’s due in all of life’s joys and riches. Saajan has reconciled with the fact that life can be nothing but lonely. If loneliness is a limbo, his state of mind is one where he has pulled the plug already. His shrugging off of the pest in Shaikh (Nawazzudin Siddiqui, delightful) is not the reaction of the irritable working husband having to deal with stress, anxiety, school admissions, constipation and what not. He is more like Ebenezer Scrooge who’d say no to Christmas because it doesn’t let the dead decompose. 

One day, Saajan receives a lunchbox door-delivered by the famed dabbahwalahs of Mumbai. The box looks no different from the one he receives every day. But the food is not the same. It is not the aloo-gobi that so disgusts him. It is nothing remarkable either. The one distinguishing detail about this food is that it shows care – care that a loving wife shows her husband, which he now has intercepted. Care that wants nothing but acknowledgement for it to soldier on; for her to soldier on. Her name is Ila. He comes to know of it through a note she slips into the folds of a chapatti as she lets him know that the food she cooks for her husband is getting delivered to him by mistake. Saajan writes back. The conversation begins.
 

Ila (Nimrat Kaur, absolutely beautiful) has reconciled to a lifeless marriage. Remember the “old lady” Celine talks about in ‘Before Sunrise’ and how their lives are but her dream with a theme of regret? Well, Ila gets to speak to that old lady, actually. She calls her “Aunty,” a voice from above which, from giving cooking suggestions to life lessons, pretty much takes her through her whole interaction with Saajan. She even functions as a jukebox when she plays ‘Mera Dil Bhi Kitna Pagal Hai’ from the film ‘Saajan’ at request. She prods Ila to take the adventure as it beckons. Ila takes it up. This choice of hers is in sync with something Saajan says in the course of their correspondence. To paraphrase, he says one’s actions are rendered meaningless in the absence of someone to share it with. This is a revelation. In the life of someone who is only perhaps a little more affable than Gru in ‘Despicable Me’, this is a twist in the tale. 

It is in the intense feeling of loneliness that both these people begin their search for joy. Let me take another ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ example to clarify. A fellow prisoner in the cave tells Bruce Wayne that it is in acknowledgement of the fear of death that one finds purpose in living. Likewise, it is by acknowledging their loneliness that Saajan and Ila seek their mutual company. Life blossoms. Saajan looks “10 years younger” as Shaikh puts it. Even Shaikh, annoying as he is with his advances, seems lovable. Saajan and Ila wake up from their coma to see that things have changed. And they scramble and scrounge to fix it, finding contentment in their efforts; in the fact that they are, for once, “trying.” 

Life becomes precious with the knowledge that one can lose it. All distinctions between “want” and “need” are made at the onset of loss. Saajan is set to retire. Ila looks to move to Bhutan. Between them, they have a month. They could miss each other. They could meet. In the course of a month, they become important enough to each other that they would try, perhaps for as long as they live – much like how the night in ‘Before Sunrise’ was adequate for Jesse and Celine to want to meet again. ‘The Lunchbox’ thus resolves into Ila necessitating Saajan and vice-versa, despite constraints. Above the impossibility of it, there is also a very petty, subjective and yet crucial barrier. Saajan might not care for the fact that Ila is married, but is perturbed by the fact that he is much older than her. He sees in her a burning flame while he fancies himself to be a burnout, only to prove himself wrong as he shrugs it off and makes a sprint for it in the style of Woody Allen in ‘Manhattan’ as opposed to going the Josh Radnor way. 

The only problem I had with ‘The Lunchbox’ was the title. I’d have liked something on the lines of ‘The Edge of Heaven.’ The Guy de Maupassant sort of banal title, I felt, took away from the poetry. There were also a couple of instances when I felt ‘The Lunchbox’ took the ‘Ship of Theseus’ route of over-explaining. Thankfully, they were very few. For the most part, ‘The Lunchbox’ is subtle filmmaking, with incredibly human performances spearheaded by the stunning Nimrat Kaur. Amidst films that manipulate people’s vulnerability, ‘The Lunchbox’ is a gift. It is not a one-time feast that satiates the voracious film-viewer who thirsts to consume. It is magic in an everyday event. In Glen Hansard’s words, it is a gift that “falls right in your hands.” Extra delightful, when you least expect it.