Course Index
In class I will be screaming the first forty-five minutes of The Lunchbox (2014). If you were absent from class or are in the on-line version of this course you will need to stream this film for a few dollars for yourself off of Canvas here. You can also find it on You Tube here. This film is set in the same city as Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and Outsourced (2006). There are some things to read before your watch the first forty-five minutes of this film and some things to read/view after.
A quick note to the seated students. We will not be covering this material until the very last day of class when I go over Assignment 8 - 20 points.
Before you watch The Lunchbox (2014)
We are about to consider a story set in a place, which is very far away from the United States - the country of India. If you have never traveled to India, it might be difficult to analyze the sensory experiences people have there. Even if you live near Jackson Heights in Queens or have had personal, physical contact with a lot of South Asian immigrants to the United States, it is very difficult to understand what a place feels, smells, tastes, sounds and looks like if you have never had any contact with it or your contact has only been through a few stray objects or people who have made their way to the United States from there. Still, you can speculate on what it might be like! You can imagine ... and dream! Just be sure to back up your speculations, imaginings and dreams by paying very close attention to the stories about this far away place I am about to lay before you, especially with regards to the ways people interact with one another. Are you ready for a truly beautiful and heartbreaking love story to add to our growing list? One that will not only pique your senses but give you hope about living in the ever connected but lonely and always distracting digital age? Keep reading ... and watching. Ordering in some Indian Take-Out while working on these materials is highly recommended!
Now watch the first forty-five minutes of The Lunchbox (2014)
Take a a quick look at Assignment 08 - 20 points so you know how you might be using this film to formulate an answer later ...
A lonely housewife, Ila, decides to try adding some spice to her stale marriage by preparing a special lunch for her neglectful husband. Unfortunately, the delivery goes astray and winds up in the hands of Saajan, an irritable widower. Curious about her husband's lack of response, Ila adds a note to the next day's lunchbox, and thus begins an unusual friendship in which Saajan and Ila can talk about their joys and sorrows without ever meeting in person.
You can find this film on You Tube here
Below is a version
After you watch the first forty-five minutes of The Lunchbox (2014)
The Lunchbox (2014) is a one hundred per cent a fictional narrative film. You might even call it a fairy tale. But it also features actual Dabbawalahs as extras, real guys who practice and identify with this very Indian, very Mumbai profession, so some of its scenes seem almost if they are a documentary.
Learn a little bit more about Dabbawalahs Of Mumbai as an example of a 21st century micro social network not located in cyber-space. Below are five of little windows into Mumbai to actually see what this very sensory social network is like - i.e., the entire network consists of interactions + relationships between people in real, (as opposed to), cyber-space.
One last note on The Lunchbox (2014) and The Dabbawalahs of Mumbai
Now, it is very important for me to point out here, that even where there are Dabbawalahs there are still Facebook users. In India, where you can get your lunch delivered by a Dabbawalah - at least in Mumbai - there are a 100 million Facebook users, which is just under the number of users in the United States, which is about 150 million. So this isn't a matter of saying, "Let's look at people's interactions in India, they are not as technological advanced as the United States." This is about taking a closer look at people's actual, sensory interactions in the 21st century - i.e. now - in a place far away from our own, right here, in the United States. I always wanted to pick a story that would allow up to dig deeper into this question of how the experience of physical, sensory romantic love is different than the experience of imagined romantic love - whether it is imagined in real or cyber space.