Plot and Story Synopsis

Plot and Story Synopsis

The 'Lunch Box' is an epistolary romantic film, where the leading characters are Ila and Saajan. Ila is a young wife, who is trying to get the attention of her husband in order to ignite the spark between them once again. She tries to do so through her cooking, as she prepares new recipes which will arouse some reaction from her neglectful husband. After Ila prepares the lunch box with hopes that her husband will receive it, it is mistakenly delivered via Mumbai's dabbawallahs (couriers), to another office worker, Saajan, a claims officer who is on the verge of his retirement. 

When Ila realizes that someone else received the lunch box, she a puts a note in the lunchbox the following day to solve this mystery. This leads to an ongoing exchange of written correspondence between Saajan and Ila (which is proving beneficial enough for both of them that no attempt is made to correct the delivery mistake). They confesses their feelings of loneliness, their memories, their fears, their regrets and their joys. After numerous notes, an unexpected friendship and relationship strike up between them.  As the lunchbox goes back and forth, this fantasy becomes so elaborate that it threatens to overwhelm their reality. They exist on the line between the Mumbai of reality and the Mumbai of fantasy. In the end, they come to a crossroads where they must choose between the two worlds.