Thinking into the box

(Again, this becomes a record of published work!)

It’s that time of year when advice floods the headlines. Parents are told how to treat children who have been made fragile by an overload of schoolwork, studying and pre-examination pressures. Children are told how to behave when parents push them, when they need to finish revision of impossibly sized coursework portions, when they don’t think they have done enough to top a class or a college or even a state list. And everyone has ideas on what to eat, what to avoid, what to moderate and what to focus on.

Along the way, food becomes all important. Nutritionists and dieticians have all sorts of suggestions: high protein, low fat, low-carbs, no carbs, extra carbs…a kitchen manager’s nightmare. But once the food is put together and ready to be packed, a strange problem arises. With the plethora of plastics available today and the sturdy and die-hard metals that were so ubiquitous in naani’s time, what does the modern mother – or father, since the nicely-trained-in-housework daddy is the man to watch these days – use to stash her baby’s carefully balanced meal in? Aluminum foil is handy, but expensive; plastic wrap is not easy to handle when you are in a hurry; neither is eco-friendly. The old favourite tiffin dabba is passé, its multi-tiered compactness generally limited to lunches delivered by the dabbawalla or seen in more modern avatars as individual containers within an insulated box. But those are more adult-use food-ware, carried primarily by the busy executive commuting by train, or by a driver taking the boss lunch to the office.

Today plastic reigns. It is easy to use, convenient to wash, comes in bright colours and interesting shapes appealing to any child and is light and inexpensive, no devastating loss if it is lost at school, left on the bus or broken during a session of breaktime roughhousing. In fact, plastic boxes for children’s snacks or mini-meals come in all sorts of forms, from the dabbas available on the street in Crawford Market (about Rs25-150 for a set) to more fancy versions in Gala Stores in Breach Candy, Hypercity in the Inorbit Mall, Asiatic Stores in Churchgate, Akbarally’s and elsewhere, with prices going up to about Rs650 for all the bells and whistles, higher for a foreign make). Brands include Pearlpet, Cello, Ajanta, Lunchmate and others. The American import Tupperware is considerably more expensive, available only from the friendly neighbourhood sales representative, with a tag of about Rs745 for the executive lunch box set which comes in a smart insulated bag to Rs255 for a single internally divided box.

All delicious ways to store a healthy lunch that will surely add to a child’s energy and enthusiasm during a stressful time.