The Lunchbox

There is an interesting thought that I have been meaning to share for the past few months. Of course, the thought came to me because I watched a movie. This time, the movie was The Lunchbox.


It was aptly named The Lunchbox due to the romance that was sparked because of a lunchbox delivery mishap, something that rarely occurred in India's dabbawalas. This unfortunate event had made a man, named Saajan, received a lunchbox that was supposed to be given to someone else. At first, he was not baffled by the fact that his lunch tasted exponentially better than the day before. But the next day, when he found a small note inside the box, he became intrigued. The note was written by Ila, a generous hausfrau that had cooked with all her might for her husband; only to have the food delivered to the wrong person. But, was it truly delivered to the wrong person? This movie explored the possibility of romance in the basic way possible; feelings ignited without having to physically meet the other person. Watching it was truly a pleasure, like taking a long sip of a perfectly brewed tea in the middle of autumn afternoon.

However, it was not the romance part that got me thinking, although it was delivered in a really gentle and subtle way. There was a scene, where Ila was reading the reply that was written by Saajan. In this particular scene, they were starting to get to know each other, and Saajan had just revealed to Ila that he was a widower. He wrote, "I think we forget things if we have no one to tell them to." That line truly struck me until I was only a helpless, quivering mess—not the good kind either. It made an impact to me because I understood it quite well.

Although I am pretty much an open book, but it is not easily read due to my inability to properly communicate something to someone else. I have always felt like there is something left unsaid when I talk to people––broken pieces hanging on the tip of my tongue, its existence forgotten because I am not used to explain things in great details to someone, because I am not used to letting it all go. There are things that I failed to mention because I am not fluent in sharing almost completely about myself to someone else. And I am certain that telling intimate details to another person is a form of art. The kind of which that I have yet to master.

Truly, I did not intend to write this to make people take pity on me––or worse, to make my close friends think that they are not enough vessels for my oceans of stories. In this particular post, I would like to describe how it is like when you are not well practiced in the beauty that is confidentially convey your personal thoughts and idea to someone. To tell you the truth, the reason why I am oftentimes frustrated is because I cannot fully express everything that I had meant to say. I have observed that when you have a significant other, or a partner, you get to practice on categorising your thoughts inside your head because it would not make sense for them to listen to everything all at once. Unfortunately, due to the lack of partner, my thoughts are often in jumbles and mess since I have no way of sorting them out. It makes it harder for me to actually seek an honest conversation with someone because usually I would be at loss on what to begin since, with no one to share, I usually keep everything to myself.

This topic is related to the question that my coworker asked me last Friday, "do you have any friends that you are truly yourself when you are with them?" And I would like to answer the question with both yes and no. Yes, because I do not have any private life that truly no one knows about, therefor whenever you are with me I am truly myself. But also no, because I interact with circles of my friends differently; my friends have different ideas of me, especially those that are in different social groups. One would bond with me on the base of similar music taste, while the other was someone I grew up with. All of them, however, do not know every side of me.

I know it is very repetitive of me for saying that I need an intimate relationship with someone, but I have found that in this day and age, it is something that people often find themselves lacking with. It plays a huge role in people's personal development, and I always seek that growth that would make me discover more and more about myself. It is an idealistic and delusional notion for thinking that intimacy would be the key for me to understand myself, but it does not hurt to try, does it?

[pic by jueki]