Filmmakers in India have time and again toyed with this romantic idea in films.
Ritesh Batra’s supple, sumptuous and nourishing The Lunchbox is not the first film where two people share a love relationship without meeting. Here are other films where the protagonists form an indelible relationship without meeting one another.
Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978): Shashi Kapoor loves the lady’s lilting voice. And why not? The songs were sung by the legendary Lata Mangeshkar. But he doesn’t ever see her face. Can a man fall in love with simply a voice, no matter how melodious? Raj Kapoor’s failed masterpiece played an interesting hide-and-seek between body and soul.
Saajan (1991): Sometimes love stares you in the face and you can’t recognise it. This was the case with Madhuri Dixit in this potboiler. She doesn’t know that the poet Sagar (Sanjay Dutt) whose lines she adores is actually her suitor’s best friend. Though melodramatic and unconvincing the film showed it was possible to fall in love with an idea.
Antareen (1993): Mrinal Sen’s unsung little gem revolves around a lonely housewife (Dimple Kapadia) who strikes up an ongoing conversation with a writer (Anjan Dutta) over the phone. They fall in love and decide to meet at a railway station, but miss one another by mere inches. Based on a Sadat Hassan Manto story, this film was suffused in the aura of aimless conversations that are characteristic of the landline phones.
Sirf Tum (1999): The couple who falls in love in this film through corny letters does meet at the end. But only in the end. Till then Sanjay Kapoor and Priya Gill stay ‘this’ close to meeting throughout. An interesting premise based on the concept of fugitive love this was remake of a Tamil film Kadhal Kottai.
Na Tum Jaano Na Hum (2002): Director Arjun Sablok’s film about a friendship that blossoms over letters between two sensitive lonely souls. One of Hrithik Roshan’s most subtle performances while Esha Deol was captured in frames suggesting fabulous forlornness. The film showed that passionate love is possible without physical contact.
The Japanese Wife (2010): Based on a short story by Kunal Basu, Aparna Sen’s film about a pen friendship between a Bengali man (Rahul Bose) and a Japanese girl (Chigusa Takaku) that lasts for 17 years was hard to believe. They even “marry” through letters! But never meet until the end.
The Lunchbox (2013): They share their thoughts on food, life, living and relationships. But they never meet. Irrfan and Nimrat Kaur are to the internet generation what the timeless Nutan and her co-star Manish epitomised in the evergreen Saraswatichandra song Phool tumhe bheja hai khat mein.
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