The Lunch Box

Neha Lamba Grover: Hello everyone, welcome back to No Forks Given. I am Neha Lamba. I'm joining you today from New York. I have with me Shubh Geherwar, who is a young filmmaker. ⁓ he's recently made a short film called The Lunchbox. ⁓ Welcome Shubh.

Shubh Gaharwar: Hi Neha, thank you so much for having me.

Neha Lamba Grover: So you're currently joining us from India, but you're based in UK. And the story of the lunchbox is something that's come out of your personal experience is what I hear. So can you tell us a little bit about your background and what inspired the movie?

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm. Yep. Sure, yes. Well, again, I was born in India. My whole family is from just outside of Delhi. And we moved to the UK, my parents and I, when I was around six, five, six years old. And I've been there ever since. just getting out of university then and in higher education, I ended up coming to London. We weren't based in London. We were based just outside of London in Reading. and coming to London and I've just graduated from film school which with my thesis graduation project which was a short film ⁓ which is called Lunchbox. It's about essentially a seven-year-old South Asian kid who gets teased for his food at school when he brings in ⁓ some festival food one day and that leads him to question his own identity and gets back to his mum who wants to Holi, the Hindu festival with him. So essentially it's about an immigrant mother and son relationship as they come to terms with their own assimilation and their own identity within British culture.

Neha Lamba Grover: And so is it you do you experience something similar or how did you think of the lunchbox as a metaphor for that conversation

Shubh Gaharwar: was it was drawn on something ⁓ similar initial thing of Iron Mill and I was in like I was in year two or year three in school and ⁓ My always used to bring it ⁓ back Indian food and stuff like that and I would use to wrap it up in foil because I used to eat it very discreetly because I knew even back then it was something subconscious like ⁓ my god, I want it's something different than everyone else in my class and So I was like I'm gonna eat this kind of on my own and see and not have anyone else coming on it. And then one day I bought in, it must have been like January or something. And obviously they're like brown beads and I was teased to call it poop. I wasn't, I remember not being allowed to, my friends back then got up, the table and said, we're not going to come back and eat our food until you close the lunchbox. And so that was the first kind of, that's something that which stuck with me. ⁓ And I get, remember

Neha Lamba Grover: And that's a scene in your film, yeah. That's a scene.

Shubh Gaharwar: That is, and that ended up being the sort of incising incident for the rest of the story for our main character.

Neha Lamba Grover: So the lunchbox to me is a perfect metaphor for this struggle that families have when they're trying to straddle two cultures. Because it really is in the school where you have one generation trying to fit in and ⁓ the or the parents have their own struggle where they're trying to go to work or ⁓ even home, they almost feel responsible for preserving some sort of culture and passing it on. to their kids and sometimes it's through the lunch box that they're packing or the tiffin that they're packing and there's this balance of you know and you brought that struggle from the mother's point of view because she thinks that while her child doesn't want to carry Indian food in the lunch box and that means he's becoming less Indian. Did you did your mom experience something? Did you have you know chat with her on that or?

Shubh Gaharwar: Yeah. For me, I think it was, again, because it's a short film, you need to put so much into so little time. For me, it was a lot more gradual. I remember even after that, didn't, immediately after that incident happened to me, it's not something I thought about that much. went, again, being a kid, I was like, okay, whatever. And I kind of boxed it away. And it was only, again, being a teenager and again, going to a white school, a white Christian school in the UK.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: and not having that sort of, ⁓ the education of like not kind of putting myself, not wanting to be like outwardly like, one trying to fit in and not to like put my own identity out there as, that could be a target for discrimination, bullying, teasing even, and so on and so forth. But so.

Neha Lamba Grover: to drive a van.

Shubh Gaharwar: The thing, I grew up in Reading and Reading has a very big South Asian community.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yes.

Shubh Gaharwar: in the UK, we celebrate everything's a huge, my family friends are all South Asian and we all speak Hindi and we all do the festivals. But that was a world completely outside of school and school is very British and white and Christian. And that's something that I kind of hid in a way because I was accepting of my identity outside with my parents. I never, never wanted that growing up to be kind of infiltrated. into my school life.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, and the reason why I relate to this and the reason why I said it's a perfect metaphor is because my kids are born and raised in the United States. And as a mother, I I moved there after I got married, went to business school here. And I, you know, I realize how little Americans knew about

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm.

Neha Lamba Grover: my food and of course as adults there was less reaction to it but when I was sending the kids to school we didn't have the school was very small and we didn't have a cafeteria and I could see the difference I mean I the one struggle was of course the child not wanting to be visible in terms of the food they're eating and you know being commented upon but as a mother Even if I wanted my child to blend in, I was struggling with the menu myself. I had to understand what other parents put in those tiffins. If I disagreed with Ziploc bags because I had a aversion to plastic because in India, it's not just the food. There's this culture in many of these communities where you want to reuse the tiffin box. And ⁓ and my daughter would carry on and why can't you just zip it up? Why can't you just put it in little Ziploc bags? ⁓ just kept thinking, but there's microplastics. Listen, I'm trying to explain to her that this is also unhealthy. But more importantly, what kind of sandwich, it was that that I, a parent, was struggling with, ⁓ But... ⁓

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm.

Neha Lamba Grover: Strangely enough, in ninth grade, my son had an assignment about picking some experience or I think not even racist, just ⁓ to do with blending in. ⁓ they had to make a comic book and he chose literally the example that you've chosen of carrying Palak Paneer, which is ⁓ green spinach paste ⁓

Shubh Gaharwar: Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: everybody reacted and that was a story that he wrote in his book and I didn't realize that he had gone through something like that ⁓ So what you think, like, why do you think food then is such a big deal for ⁓ any diaspora? Why is it such, why can't they just let go of it and ⁓ find other ways to connect ⁓ with their community their culture?

Shubh Gaharwar: I mean food is such like a sensual experience. You taste it, you smell it, you see it. You can't, it's not something you can like ignore in a sense. I guess ⁓ it's different to like clothing or something else where it's something so far away. Like if you don't wanna, if you see someone in like traditional Indian wear just going to the shops or something, that's weird, but you can turn away and not. be affected by it, but that's not something you can really do with food. And when you see food, you're always in a cafeteria, you're always too close to it. So it's something so that if you don't know what it is, there's always gonna be this curiosity or I guess this sort of other worldiness to food. I remember my... Because I also, my mom also has this very strong opinion that, it's me and my younger brother, and she always says, I've now left home, I live in London, I make my own food and stuff like that. So she always calls me up and she's like, ⁓ what did you eat? And I say, ⁓ you know, I made carbonara today, or I made some chicken thighs. And she's always convinced that I've not, that doesn't fill me up the way that Indian food does. ⁓ she's like, ⁓ that can't be, I I can't be as nutritious as a food that I cook for you, I used to cook for you every day. And so there's always this sort of, I guess for parents as well, when you mentioned it, there's always this sort of protection that, as long as if you're eating. the that I've made, the food that my parents have taught me to make. And there's this also, it's a sort of like reassurance, I guess, that you get.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. And so if Reading is full of South Asians, then the food that you were eating in your friends and other families, was it different from what your parents were making? Because there's this whole myth about Indian food too. mean, there is no real Pan-Asian meal that you see in a typical North Indian restaurant. We don't eat that way at home and we don't, ⁓ every dish in those standard restaurants almost comes from a different community. It's a part of a different meal culture, right? Or a regional. So how was that for you?

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ So I guess ⁓ again ⁓ where we talk about like even like India, groups of people or groups of like, you find someone from the South or from some of the places you stick together, because it's a shared culture and identity within India as well. So, and we're from North India, so around Delhi, so we had the majority of my parents' friends were also around North India and they could, also because festivals are different when you go down South, you celebrate different festivals differently. They had their own.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm.

Shubh Gaharwar: festivals and seasons and their own preparations they do for food so they always you always just end up with similar groups and so what you see what basically happened was when we would have

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: South Asian food like dosa or idli or something it would be something special and like ⁓ let's let's treat ourselves and stuff like that whereas when we'd have na and dal and stuff and rice and stuff that we're more used to up in up in north India it would just be considered as as as everyday food really.

Neha Lamba Grover: But interestingly enough, everything you said just validates the position of your friends who aren't familiar with your food, because we're doing that amongst us ourselves, We're literally segregating to food and familiar food that we understand, and then we are holding somebody else responsible for not being familiar enough. ⁓

Shubh Gaharwar: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah is it.

Neha Lamba Grover: And South Indian food, to me, growing up was also the dishes you name like idli and dosa. But the more I have exposed myself to South Indian meals, they also get, most South Indian friends of mine get very annoyed when we reduce it to that, just as North Indians, there's more than butter chicken and kali dal.

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Neha Lamba Grover: I think regional cuisines are now having their day.

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: ⁓ But maybe consciously stepping out to meet a surprising show that something like that would happen in UK because the history that UK has with India so much longer and deeper. Even in 1970s, I read some statistics that there were about 2000 Indian restaurants in Britain.

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm. Mm. Hmm

Neha Lamba Grover: So that's the interesting thing for me And I want to bring your attention to this recent incident in the US. ⁓ were two PhD students in the University of Colorado Boulder who were prevented from heating or microwaving their palak paneer.

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm.

Neha Lamba Grover: because they said it smells too much and they took the university to court and ended up having an out of court settlement. But as a part of that settlement, unfortunately, they have to not come back to the university also. And it's led to a lot of debate because you referred to the fact that food is very intrinsic to people's cultures because of, you know, it tends to titillate multiple senses. Smell then becomes a very... important one because it also ties to memory. carries, you when you think of a certain smell, it reminds you of a certain time. But when I smell Indian food or good Indian food, I immediately think of, yum, you know, I've palak paneer is cooking, looks like rajma is cooking. It bothers me because it relates to things I like eating. But early years when I got married and came here, I mean, maybe broccoli and cheese bothered me as a smell. So what do you think about like, isn't it, is there a universal sort of

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm.

Neha Lamba Grover: a smell of food that is bad or good or is it something to do with you know it reminds us of certain flavors and tastes and experiences and so we like it and it's unfamiliar what do you think

Shubh Gaharwar: I think in terms of smell it anything which is again if you're used to again like I'll give again my mother as an example she's she was used to a certain type of Indian cooking and stuff like that and so whenever she smells and she's a pure vegetarian so whenever she smelled meat even like at all in she'd be so adverse to it and she doesn't allow meat in the house and stuff like that

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: because she just can't deal with the smell of eggs and the smell of meat really sets, like does not, like really sets her off. And I guess it is that thing of foreignness. mean, when you go, bring back up that whole thing about students bringing, that seems so unbathable. it's just parlek vanille. It's like, it's nothing. It's such a reaction on.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: the path, especially though they're not allowed back. this is not a defense at all on behalf of that university. ⁓ having, guess that sort of would come from the thing of ⁓ foreignness, if something smells or things are.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: looks different than it's sort of hostile or it's like ⁓ that shouldn't be there or like put it up put away that's not within what I imagined you know my mother world around me to be and which is really unfortunate.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, and that is at some level racist because, you know, it is you, you have to as adults start understanding that something is unfamiliar and the reverse might be true. And for an education institution to not be able to understand that is, is, is perplexing to me. ⁓ I work for a technology company and we were celebrating, I think, Asian history month one time and I was on a panel.

Shubh Gaharwar: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: And I had with me two ⁓ people who were born and raised in the US, but they were of Asian origin. And I mean East Asian. One was Korean and one was of Chinese origin. And they talked about their lunchbox growing up and how they were embarrassed to take their noodles and some of the Asian food ⁓ And ⁓ they commented on the that, become fashionable now

Shubh Gaharwar: Hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: noodles and everyone now ⁓ gets very interested the tiffin And that was interesting to me because it really is about not just familiarity, it's something to do with when a country and a culture starts coming not just mainstream, the country starts doing very well, the country that you associate with that food. You know in 2000,

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: Three, when I came here, someone said when India starts doing well, some relative of mine, you will suddenly notice that you'll find it easier to take pride in your food. I find that, I mean, what do you think?

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess it does, but it's also concerning that becoming a sense, having a sense of pride is only when it's validated through a Western lens. it only, I guess it's also hard for people who are living in the diaspora, especially it's so much easier if you live in India to be like, ⁓ I'm so proud of my culture because you're surrounded by all the time. It's everywhere and everyone around you is, but if you're isolated somewhere. I guess that also comes into point of like, if say British people around me are, are, ⁓ I'll be like, ⁓ my God, I love India so much now. a lot of people ⁓ be like, ⁓ my God, I've really wanted to go visit India. ⁓ and I really want to explore my, and stuff like that now. And it's been so surprising to see that sort of reaction. Cause on one hand is it's great that like, ⁓ people are opening up to, you know, they're so much more open minded or maybe it's just because I'm dealing with like, I'm talking with like adults now and there's so much been like, oh my God, I love India. I love the history, love the culture. But at the same time, I'm kind of conflicted with like, oh, I shouldn't get a sense of pride from that. Because I should always, I should already have been prideful growing up off my culture. And it's a shame that I wasn't until other people around me were like, oh my God, I love India.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. another thing is that sometimes you can start loving a place culturally and yet not love the people. Like there is I've also seen a disassociation between in England, for instance, you know, the chicken Tikka masala, right. It has been theoretically it's I mean, it's supposed to have been created in England very close to the butter chicken around a similar time ⁓ in India.

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm. Yeah. Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: but it's often been quoted as a national dish and not facetiously, ⁓ I might add. ⁓ now that that stream of food is evolving further there is a whole lot of fusion dishes up. ⁓ But just because the food itself is seen as entwined in British history, it's not necessary that Indians themselves are being ⁓ seen in the same light as somebody that they have the same relationship. So you can start liking a food and yet ⁓ have some baggage towards a race or a community.

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm. 100%. I mean, ⁓ there was an incident on social media last year when ⁓

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: We have a far right party coming on the rise called reform with Nadir Faraj and there was a big anti-immigration rally. But afterwards, what was surprising was a lot of those supporters that went to Indian restaurants, to Turkish restaurants, to like kebab shops and stuff like that and Chinese takeaways and stuff like that. And it's such a dissonance. know those shared a lot on social media and there's such a dissonance of what's I guess, again, liking these sort of dishes and stuff like that.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: and still not being aware of who are these people making these dishes, where's the history and the culture of these dishes. And I think that's also a lot to do with, I guess, British education system as well, when it comes to, in a broader context, with we're not really, I had maybe six weeks in my... years and years of 16 years of education when we talked about the empire and stuff like that ⁓ which is so surprising because it's such a big and you only really taught that if you take history as a specialized subject which a lot most majority people don't I didn't and so through I guess it sort of creates this especially early on it creates this uncurious ⁓ thing of

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: if you might enjoy something, but you're not going to be forced deeper into why do I enjoy this and where this is actually come from.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. one of the reasons why I started this podcast was I thought that in a very, ⁓ mean, identity is being tied to food. ⁓ very often also correlates with if you think of a certain social identity in a monolithic sort of way, you tend to have a similar perception of the food. So if you think of Indians all as one kind of people, you also lump Indian food as spicy and you will name the same three dishes. Whereas when you start getting into the history of each of these and you realize Punjabi food, how different it is from Bengali food, which is all fish based and cooked in mustard oil and the

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm. Mm. Mm.

Neha Lamba Grover: amount of sweet, the emphasis there is on dessert, especially particularly chena main dessert and how North Indians would be uncomfortable with say certain kinds of Gujarati dal that they have has sugar in it. and it's a different cuisine. And then you further south and you have dosas and idlis that the North, we talked about, ⁓ but when you start going further and further into the of these ingredients, even that whole conversation around authenticity. So first you've got this monolithic view and then you start looking at the diversity. Then you start looking at where what came from. The whole conversation around authenticity starts crumbling too because red chilies didn't come to North India till 1850 and they were brought in 100 years before that into the subcontinent by the Portuguese.

Shubh Gaharwar: Hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: It's just ⁓ a fake contract construct as well. So when you start getting into these you start realizing when you build these stereotypes. and then you learn to discriminate against them, really it's a lot more entwined, you know, that history. So when you're talking about the politicians in a Turkish restaurant or an Indian restaurant, even if they start getting into those ingredients in their story, they'll find it so complicated that even that objection to the meeting there will start getting more and more complicated. Again, it's the stereotype we have at a certain point. I

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm. Mm. you

Neha Lamba Grover: So I love the, I really resonate with the concept of the lunchbox. think it really is the right metaphor for, capture the struggle of, you know, community trying to straddle to cultures. And there are so many, so many nuances to it. And you've gone beyond food and looked at that face cream where we're talking about skin culture as well. Is that something touched upon? It didn't stretch it too much. You want to talk a little bit about that?

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, essentially he ends up by wanting to trying to fit in. It starts off by not eating like Indian food that his mom's cook to not speaking the language or replying back to her questions in English. and taking away all his colorful clothes and stuff like that to eventually, in the most extreme sense, using a skin, whitening a skin bleaching product on himself and then getting burnt with it, which is such an extreme example, but I want to show how these little things of isolating themselves leads up to something much, much bigger and much more intense. And the...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. And questioning, recently, I find that Indian culture is much more visible in mainstream media and ⁓ in mainstream culture, at least in the US, lot of the TV shows that the teens are watching, whether it's Never Ever Ever or it's ⁓ Bridgerton, you you're seeing Indian characters, ⁓ you're Indian ⁓ designers like Sabhyasachi or the Paris Fashion Week, you know, lot of Indian

Shubh Gaharwar: Hmm. Very soon. Mm-hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: ⁓ But here is where the Indian part of the discrimination comes in. A conversation that Meera Nair I started in like 1989 with Mississippi Masala. ⁓ I've seen posts by Indians who will decry the fact that the Indian women, for instance, that are visible in these mainstream media representation are dark skinned.

Shubh Gaharwar: Hmm

Neha Lamba Grover: And there are about seven or eight such examples that all of them are dark skinned. ⁓ India continues to be embarrassed of the fact that, finally we are getting represented, but that's not a side of mine that I want to show. And they themselves are representing the main actors and heroines of their stories with much lighter skin. So that turned into an online debate where,

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: we need to look at how we discriminate amongst us as a society as well, while also bringing attention to what we are experiencing as a community it's maybe Mississippi masala was ahead of its time, but the conversation stays relevant.

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm. I absolutely adore Mississippi Masala. I only recently just watched it this year. It was so, it's so far ahead of its time. I couldn't believe it when it was made and how was made. I mean, Mira NaIr is an incredible screenwriter and director. ⁓ Yeah, I did. I did see that, especially when like Bridgerton, the season two was announced and ⁓ they were like, ⁓ why a lot of like...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. So far, yeah, Yeah. Yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: again, Indians from India were like, why are they uplifting, like, dark skinned women? And what about the the lighter skinned women and stuff like that? But I think a lot of that conversation does sort of backlash comes from a very like colorist thinking. Because it's such a shame that the advertisement and what the beauty industry in South Asia is so

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shubh Gaharwar: focus on whiteness and its proximity to, I guess, Europeaness and whiteness in particular of wanting the actresses. I remember growing up and even when I was growing up having actresses come out from Europe to speak Hindi and play Indian roles rather than having Indian actresses.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yes.

Shubh Gaharwar: or by coloring lighter when there was a darker ⁓ actress to be played, they would ⁓ artificially darken their skin colors for lighter actresses instead of just getting a darker skinned actress instead, which I found really, really baffling. But I'm actually quite glad that the representation in for Western media is becoming more. like a really beautiful ⁓ actresses who are darker skinned as well, because it's I guess, inadvertently, through globalization, it's helping ⁓ Indians from India see, look, we can have representation outside of just pale, skinny, European looking Indians, essentially.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, yeah. And we've been waiting for a moment where the world, ⁓ suddenly mainstream culture, the world is acknowledging Indian craft or ⁓ Prada thinks they can take a Kola Puri chapl and not credit anybody or Ralph Lauren has taken street jewelry that we've been wearing for years and not credited and called it vintage, et cetera. But they're getting interested suddenly in copying Indian culture, but it's literally the timing of that.

Shubh Gaharwar: Mmm. Yeah. Hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: ⁓ It isn't so much timing. It maybe is the catalyst that is forcing Indians also, while they want to take pride in that interest, it's time to start looking at our very imperfect society as well, right? It's timing for that conversation and they will both go hand in hand. ⁓ And more of us are telling our stories. You are, and Meera also says that no one else will tell our stories unless we do. So what's plan for the lunchbox going forward?

Shubh Gaharwar: Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm. So we ⁓ started off our festival journey in Northern California at the Sundial International Film Festival and we won, we're lucky enough to win the Best Student Short Film Award. Thank you. And from that, we've essentially, there's having doing a bunch of screenings around.

Neha Lamba Grover: Congratulations.

Shubh Gaharwar: select countries around the world. In Houston, I think we're going to be having a screening in collaboration with Society Asia. And in Paris, there's a production, a distribution company called I am Desi. And they specifically distribute Indian films to French and Parisian ⁓ independent cinemas to get more...

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm.

Shubh Gaharwar: ⁓ South Asian cinema and filmmaking out there. So we're doing a screening in Paris as well this year and hopefully keep on going through the festival circuits. And we're doing a screening in London, our first screening in London this week as well, which I'm really excited about.

Neha Lamba Grover: Perfect. Well, congratulations. Wish you all the best for the film and also for many more stories. I hope that you continue to tell our stories and any other story that you wish to tell. Thank you once again for coming to speak to me.

Shubh Gaharwar: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much.