Name-Place-Animal-THING: Lunchbox
Despite a rocky start, my relationship with lunchboxes has evolved— with other people's lunchboxes, that is!
It’s a strange relationship. Lunchboxes and me. We didn’t get along at first. Food was great but food in a tiffin box, not so much.
School
My disdain for tiffins came from a place of privilege and choice. Privilege because I lived 100 metres away from school — so lunch was always piping hot food on my own dining table with mum, dad and bhai. Imagine garam garam rajma on arwa chawal with a bowl of pristine white curd!
Choice because my valuable 15 minute recess pipped a jam sandwich.
College
I warmed up to tiffins in college. I waited for it like one does for their crush to show up. It didn’t matter if it was cold limp puris, suspiciously yellow snake-skinned pumpkin, or glistening high-on-salt aloo bhunjiya — that multi-level, steel lunch box just had to be there.
I once threw a fit when it didn’t turn up that night. I felt stood up. Abandoned. Deserted. I cried. My Outram Lines flatmates offered to share theirs but I refused. I wanted mine. I headed to Chipsy Chopsy on Kingsway Camp with a 10 rupee note. Teary-eyed and angry, I had an egg roll.
This was the food version of revenge sex!
First Paying Job
At The Telegraph, Jasmeeta’s mum’s gunpowder idli and a very dubious Nepali dhaaba’s chicken chawal turned the crush into an affair. I remember being mildly pissed the first time the gunpowder idli tiffin was passed around in office. “Why?” I had asked her. Jasmeeta was just being civil. But thankfully, the Bong-Gujju-Bihari crowd found it “VERY HOT”. Super!
Mera gunpowder idli ab sirf mera tha!
Down To Earth
“Whenever I see you, you are always eating something”. Surjo had remarked at the end of my very first week at Down to Earth magazine. Everytime he went down for a smoke, I was right there, on my floor but in his line of sight, stuffing my face with food.
I had food from everyone’s tiffin—paratha, salad, cold soup, beef fry, poha, aviyal, poriyal, kebab, khichdi, daliya, putta-egg curry. Everything. Anything. These were people who thought our office canteen wasn’t up to the mark. Good for me. But our canteen was actually very decent. A different menu everyday complete with papad and raita. This was my dream canteen. With a dream job.
The affair was on!
Oxfam India
Anyhow, the affair soon became a bit obsessive.
Chandy’s1 had become my go-to tiffin. The mallu getting maaru food wasn’t ideal but a) at least there was food and b) he was a painfully slow eater. P A I N F U L L Y S L O W E A T E R. Left to himself, the one hour lunch could easily become three hours. So I helped speed up the process!
Since he had to polish off his tiffin by the end of day, we became friends—he needed me as much as I needed him. I even had all his fertility ladoos. Some ladoos they were—he became a father, I just grew in size!
Another colleague’s mum-in-law made amazing parwal. After a couple of raids, Avinash started getting me my separate dabba with a couple of rotis and sabzi. This was pre-lunch at about 12 everyday.
My boss, Pooja (aka PKB Parvati), was consistent. Curd Rice. Any season, any day, any time — curd rice. Which was good because on one occasion, she got pasta with paneer (or was it aaloo) in it. I love her but I draw the line at paneer/aaloo pasta.
Anyhow, the obsession crossed a line when I had Chandy’s tiffin on a day when he was stuck in a very very long meeting. I had had my canteen lunch and after an hour, I went and had his as well. The tomato red Tupperware on his table was rather tempting. I had assumed he would be served lunch at the marathon meeting—but clearly that wasn’t the case.
As he walked out from the conference room, I shouted “Chandy boy, your tiffin’s finished”. I thought I had done him a favour. I hadn’t. He was famished and now he was ANGRY. For the next few hours, I grovelled, I apologised, I ordered food for him and I continued to grovel.
That wasn’t the last day of our friendship—he still needed me as much as I needed him—but I made a mental note to never cross that line again. If I were him, I would have punched me in the face that day.
Lunchbox and I very nearly became estranged lovers. Very nearly.
We have now matured—I am now in a very consensual relationship with other people’s lunchboxes.
Strange relationship. Lunchboxes and me!
Lunchbox was the prompt at the writing workshop with and .
Remember the game Name Place Animal Thing. Through this series I unleash my very dodgy painting skills on unsuspecting readers, and also let you in on the what-when-how-why-who-where (if any) of these masterpieces (and more). You can find the older pieces here, here, here, and here.
Chandy isn’t his real name. He is a Oommen, so Chandy just seemed natural.
I ate up this essay omg and the art! The people! The food! The gunpowder idli now resides in my heart, oops, shouldn't have passed it around this substack table.
Savvy, you have landed yet another beautiful, fast paced essay! This one is as much about food, as it is about friendship! The Fertility Ladoos had me in splits!