Conflict Analysis

Conflict Analysis

Both the main characters in 'The Lunchbox' experience internal  conflict. Ila is the housewife who is bred and lives by the Hindu culture to dutifully stay with her husband and support her family despite what. She is burdened by the thought her husband is having an affair, while also worrying about taking care of her ailing father, a job that would normally fall to the son of the family, except that he has committed suicide. Her mother is unable to meet the medical expenses and this falls on Ila's shoulders. He eventually dies and her mother confesses to her that she was unhappy for most of her marriage. This gives Ila a certain amount of courage and strength to break free of propriety.

Once Ila has discovered her husband’s affair she starts daydreaming about taking her daughter, Yashvi  away with her to Bhutan (the tiny Himalayan country far to the east of Mumbai, between India and China) in hopes of finding a better, happier and independent life there.

Saajan on the other hand, who, as we have established, is on the verge of retirement which indicates that he is somewhat 'old', fights internally with that same belief, after they decide to meet  at the restaurant where they planned to meet for the first time. 

 

His age conflict is heightened even more after he goes to the restaurant and sees Ila. In turn, he does not present himself to her but writes her a letter telling her of his fears and anxieties as they relate to their age difference. She responds by sending an empty lunchbox the next day. As a result of this conflict, Sajaan opted to break off the 'relationship' with Ila. He feels he has little to live for in Mumbai so he set off on a train for a new life in Nashik (another city in western India, about 100 miles away).  He has a change of heart, though, deciding that he’s given up too easily on the possibility of a connection with Ila so he returns.

External conflict is portrayed as the film doubles as an allegorical portrait of Mumbai in the midst of profound change. The two main characters are Christian  and Hindu, and that the loneliness that unites them is far more than the sum of their differences. They clearly belong to different social groups and crave what the other has. Sajaan lives in Christian neighborhood where he chases children away and Ila belongs to a middle-class Hindu community which isolates her as she is trapped in a loveless marriage and without a job to get her out of the house.