"Food is music to the body; music is food to the heart," Gregory David Roberts wrote in Shantaram, his 2003 novel commended by many for its vivid portrayal of life in Mumbai, where the Australian former heroin addict and bank robber lived for 10 years as a fugitive.
But while Bollywood has long included music in its film equation, it has only discovered food in a big way in recent years. Some wonderful food-themed films have left audiences licking their fingers. The most popular is The Lunchbox (2013), which opens in Hong Kong cinemas on Thursday.
Largely set in Mumbai, the film is filled with enticing shots of food that the lovely Ila (Nimrat Kaur) prepares for her indifferent husband each morning, believing the way to his heart is through his stomach. So she kneads the dough, grates the cottage cheese and sprinkles the spices with a dash of hope.
The cinematic repast also resonates with its depiction of how people reach for food when they are lonely.
Ritesh Batra's romantic drama is one of those rare films that wears its art-house cinema label lightly, while charming mainstream audiences. The Lunchbox won some international awards, including for best screenplay, best actor (for Irrfan Khan) and best supporting actor (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival; it also got a special mention at the Reykjavik International Film Festival.
It's considered a commercial hit in India, where it grossed more than 70 million rupees (HK$376,500) in its first weekend - a respectable sum, given its low production budget.