It is said that one in six million dabbas delivered by Mumbai’s dabbawalas goes missing. Now what are the odds that an anxious young bride should slip in a note in that errant tiffin box that goes undelivered? Mahtab Narsimhan’s The Tiffin traces the tale of a missing dabba , the urgent note in it and the lives it subsequently turns around. The story begins with a nervous Anahita packing lunch and a note for husband Anurag. When she finds a new dabbawala at her door instead of her regular, a visibly tense Anahita takes this as a sign. “Your husband will get the delivery,” the new dabbawala assures her. Despite his assurance and his organisation’s stellar record, the dabbawala fails her and Anurag never gets the note.
Cut to 13 years later. The book’s protagonist Kunal is working at a miserable restaurant, serving lecherous customers anda bhurji and sambar vada . The employer Sethji is a veritable sourpuss, working his underage staff like slaves. With his fair countenance, light eyes and good looks, 12-year-old Kunal is often the subject of lewd speculation. It is rather obvious that Sethji and his equally surly wife have adopted Kunal.
Every night he dreams of reuniting with his real family. After he befriends Vinayakji, a dabbawala , Kunal escapes Sethji’s grim workhouse and sets his heart on becoming a dabbawala , the only way he can reach out to his mother. After several twists and turns Kunal’s plans fall into place. The mother is located but a reunion is not on the cards. Instead, the boy finds a new family.
Narsimhan says that the “unique dabbawalas of Mumbai were the inspiration for the book”. While that may be true, the real hero of the book is the city itself. The beginning smacks of the film The Lunchbox — although The Tiffin had a first release in 2011 — and it doesn’t lack in Bollywood drama. Street corners lurk with danger, fights are aplenty and violent, the scent of sexual encounters hangs in the air and childhood is a nonexistent stage for the poor of Mumbai. The abuse and violence that is meted out to Kunal and his co-workers is dramatic in its ferocity. What keeps this modern version of an old Bollywood plot — reunion of family members who were separated in the Kumbh Mela — believable is the city it is set in, the city of beautiful forevers.