A dabbawala is a person whose job is to collect lunch boxes from homes, which are packed in an aluminum container, known locally as dabba, which they deliver to customers in their respective offices. How it came into existence was a matter of necessity for the British during the Raj, who, for want of good hygienic food scarcely available on the streets of Mumbai, had to depend on meals prepared at home. They would hire locals to carry the lunch boxes from home to their workplace. Since then, these lunch box carriers have become popularly known as dabbawalas.

Mumbai is densely populated, and traffic fairly bursts out at its seams. It is the financial hub of India and has a large number of corporate offices, concentrated in south Mumbai. The working class, residing in far-off suburbs and who relish homemade dishes, patronize the dabbawalas.

This wide network, a unique human chain, is instrumental in bringing mother's recipe to the worker's desk. Every morning the dabbawala visits each home client, collects the lunch boxes, and then transports them through the suburban rail network. They are then handed over to another group of dabbawalas assembled at different railway stations. Each container of lunch boxes bears a distinguishing number and is then sorted out, allocated to each pick-up man for the onward journey, and handed out to the rightful owners.

It is a common sight to see the dabbawalas attired in their traditional white kurta (pajama) and a topi (hat), wheeling a bicycle with loads of cylindrical aluminum containers tucked on either side. These lunch boxes are delivered on every working day without fail, despite deluges during the monsoon season or a strike announcement made by a political party. Again, in the evening the empty containers are collected from offices and delivered back to homes for another round of errands the next day morning.

More than 200,000 lunch boxes are transported to and fro every day by a dabbawala force of about 5,000 strong. In today's globalization that boasts of modern transport systems, this unique human feat of delivering lunch boxes, using a non-polluting and cost-effective primitive mode of transport like bicycles and pullers of wooden carts, is unparalleled anywhere in the world.

The dabbawalas may be semi-literate, but their efficient delivery and time management skills would shame some professionally managed corporations. The American business magazine Forbes has given a six-sigma performance rating to them. The dabbawalas were also featured in a BBC documentary.

The dabbawalas achieved worldwide fame when Prince Charles, during one of his visits to Mumbai, paid a special visit to them and evidenced keen interest in how they worked. He was so impressed with them that later, during his wedding, he extended an invitation to these dabbawalas. In a way, the dabbawala does yeoman service in maintaining healthy food habits for workers in Mumbai by keeping them away from fast food joints

                                                                                                                -  Rajen Nair

                                                                                                                                      (Published in Ohmynews)