Dabbawalas Ensure That No One Stays Hungry In Aamchi Mumbai, Here's How They Do It

Mahadev Gopale leaves his home somewhere in the outskirts of Mumbai in the wee hours for hid daily job, much before the city rises. He represents what Mumbai is made of - hardwork and spirit. Gopale is also one of the mascots of this city. He delivers 'dabbas' to the working class across Mumbai. He has been doing this for decades now so no season or peak-hour time bothers him. However, when the city stopped in the flood, Gopale, against his will, had to stop.

The moment one might have thought that Mumbai rains would make the life slow and might stop the people from continuing with their daily life, the dabbawalas told us what the Mumbai spirit is all about. Despite warnings by the IMD, the dabbawalas are back the very next in business like nothing had happened on the previous one.

The spokesperson and secretary of the Dabbawala Association of Mumbai, Subhash Talekar, is sitting outside the Lower Parel station, coordinating over 50 of his men carrying tiffin boxes back at home. Talekar is the third generation of Dabbawalas in Mumbai and seems quite satisfied with the work he does. He expresses that all they do is feed people on time and feed their families in turn.

Subhash Talekar

The men in white with the classic ¡®Nehru topi¡¯ over their heads can be called as one of the unique features of Mumbai city. With over 5,000 dabbawalas across the city, Talekar happens to be belonging to one of the oldest families in the profession.

The story behind Mumbai's lunch box

Talekar tells us that his grandfather and father have both been in this business, and he is happy being in it too. ¡°I joined this business after my father and never have felt the need to go elsewhere. We¡¯re just a bunch of people doing our jobs which people find fascinating,¡± he said.

It is not a secret that the dabbawalas and their operating system have been in the syllabus of management schools around the country and world. Every successful business or organization has a backstory, and the dabbawals have theirs too. Their story of the inception of dabbawalas and their occupation dates back about 125 years. For more than a century, thousands of men in white have been roaming the tiniest grime-ridden streets of Mumbai to deliver food of people from their homes to offices on time.

The tale, as narrated by Talekar goes that when Mumbai began to attract workers from everywhere, there were those who had high-profile jobs as well. These people had to go back home for lunch, wasting a lot of time. One day, a Parsi banker wanted the home cooked meal in his office, and therefore assigned the job to the first ever dabbawala. This concept slowly caught pace and became a trend.

The dabbawalas pose outside lower parel station

Instead of just following the bandwagon of going back home for lunch, a new trend rose where people in areas like Fort, Colaba and few other areas of South Mumbai began to demand dabba deliveries from their homes. What began as a small business idea turned into a venture when Mahadeo Havaji Bachche, one of the earliest Dabbawalas post-1890 began lunch delivery service in a team format with a team of 100 dabbawalas.

Delivering Excellence

Mumbaikars who travel via local trains know that the three railway lines ¨C Harbour, Central and Western are lifelines to the dabbawalas as well. Initially, the dabbawalas worked on the basis of colour coding in order to identify and deliver the tiffins at the right places. With their expansion, however, alpha numerical is how they follow directions and deliver.

The walls outside stations marked with numbers where the man assigned to the numbered delivery stations and sorts tiffins

This is visible outside all the stations where every morning dabbawalas are seen assembling. People must often wonder what the random numbers written on walls pillars outside railway stations in Mumbai mean. Talekar unravelled this mystery for us by telling us that each number written on the walls or pillars where the dabbawalas assemble are the numbers assigned to each one of them. ¡°Each number represents an area ¨C from where a tiffin box has to be collected and taken back to. Each tiffin goes through a leader that is assigned by the association so there are no errors in the delivery,¡± he informed us.

Cycling into future?

Mahadeo Pokle, one of the dabbawalas heads towards the customers

We see the large horde of dabbawalas are bustling all around us trying to pick up their right tiffins and deliver them back to the homes they belong to. Within a time span of fifteen minutes, the dabbawalas manage to sort the tiffins out with such finesse, they all look like they¡¯re on autopilot. Some of them get done even earlier and sit down to catch up with their other colleagues for a piece of gossip. This view, is what Mumbai is all about ¨C the land of opportunities and dreams, offering a livelihood to everyone who is deemed worthy and ready to reward the tenacious and determined. The dabbawalas are a symbol of grit ¨C and the metro itself.

The total weight of the tiffins is as much as 70 Kgs which these men carry

It remains to be seen where the future generations of these tiffin-box delivering men riding their cycles will take this profession. Talekar tells us that there is a high possibility that this profession will decline, slowly, but possibly.

¡°My own son wants to study and have a high-paying job, It is for the uneducated that this profession is a way to earn money with respect. Also, each dabbawala here carries as much as 70 Kg of weight on their head and gets into the train every day. Who in this generation would choose to do such strenuous work every day?¡± he told us.