The story taught me that the lunch box carries the same ingredients of care and expectation, whether it’s made in India or in Korea writes Jeong.

Irrfan Khan, Lunch Boxes & Memories from South Korea: Junho J Jeong

In the film, like many other office-goers in the city of Mumbai, he would have cooked food delivered to his office by the famous dabbawalas. That film took me back to my childhood days when I, and all the other kids, would carry our lunch boxes to school, unsure of what treasure was hidden inside them. As we grew up, and a busy lifestyle took precedence, the humble lunch box disappeared from our lives. So, when I came to India, I was pleasantly surprised to see many of my Indian colleagues at Samsung carrying a personal lunch box to office, taking them to the cafeteria during lunch-hour, heating up the food in the smart-ovens, and serving themselves. Like many of our colleagues from Korea, I would also wonder at the hundreds of lunch boxes, in different shapes, sizes and colours, that lined the walls of the office building as their owners went out for a quick walk post lunch, especially during the winter months. As life’s biggest secrets are always unveiled at the theater, my first Indian movie, The Lunchbox showed me how Indian lunch box is prepared at home, handed over to the dabbawalas, transported on local trains to far off offices, and get delivered to the loved ones, in an efficient manner. The journey of those lunch boxes and people around it, taught me how life moves here, and reaches the destination, through the beautiful chaos of the metros. Maybe that is why we love watching Bollywood films, and why Korean movies, K-serials and K-pop are gaining popularity with millennials here. The story taught me that the lunch box carries the same ingredients of care and expectation, whether it’s made in India or in Korea. He loves walking the streets of Delhi to learn more about the flavours of India and to understand life and people here.

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