|
A dabbawala (one who carries the
box), sometimes spelled dabbawalla , tiffinwalla
, tiffinwalla or
dabbawallah, is a person in the Indian city of
Mumbai whose job is to carry and deliver freshly
made food from home in lunch boxes to office
workers. Tiffin is an old-fashioned English word
for a light lunch, and sometimes for the box it
is carried in. Dabbawalas are sometimes called
tiffin-wallas.
Though the work sounds simple, it is actually a
highly specialized trade that is over a century
old and which has become integral to Mumbai's
culture.
The dabbawala originated when a person named
Mahadeo Havaji Bachche started the lunch
delivery service with about 100 men.Nowadays,
Indian businessmen are the main customers for
the dabbawalas, and the service often includes
cooking as well as delivery.
Economic analysis:
Everyone who works within this system is treated
as an equal. Regardless of a dabbawala's
function, everyone gets paid about two to four
thousand rupees per month (around 25-50 British
pounds or 40-80 US dollars).
More than 175,000 or 200,000 lunches get moved
every day by an estimated 4,500 to 5,000
dabbawalas, all with an extremely small nominal
fee and with utmost punctuality. According to a
recent survey, there is only one mistake in
every 6,000,000 deliveries.
The BBC has produced a documentary on dabbawalas,
and Prince Charles, during his visit to India,
visited them (he had to fit in with their
schedule, since their timing was too precise to
permit any flexibility). Owing to the tremendous
publicity, some of the dabbawalas were invited
to give guest lectures in top business schools
of India, which is very unusual. Most remarkably
in the eyes of many Westerners, the success of
the dabbawala trade has involved no Western
modern high technology. The main reason for
their popularity could be the Indian people's
aversion to Western style fast food outlets and
their love of home-made food.
The New York Times reported in 2007 that the 125
year old dabbawala industry continues to grow at
a rate of 5-10% per year.
Low-tech and lean:
Dabbawala in actionAlthough the service remains
essentially low-tech, with the barefoot delivery
men as the prime movers, the dabbawalas have
started to embrace modern information
technology, and now allow booking for delivery
through SMS. A web site, mydabbawala.com, has
also been added to allow for on-line booking, in
order to keep up with the times. An on-line poll
on the web site ensures that customer feedback
is given pride of place. The success of the
system depends on teamwork and time management
that would be the envy of a modern manager. Such
is the dedication and commitment of the barely
literate and barefoot delivery men (there are
only a few delivery women) who form links in the
extensive delivery chain, that there is no
system of documentation at all. A simple colour
coding system doubles as an ID system for the
destination and recipient. There are no multiple
elaborate layers of management either — just
three layers. Each dabbawala is also required to
contribute a minimum capital in kind, in the
shape of two bicycles, a wooden crate for the
tiffins, white cotton kurta-pyjamas, and the
white trademark Gandhi topi (cap). The return on
capital is ensured by monthly division of the
earnings of each unit.
Uninterrupted services:
The service is uninterrupted even on the days of
extreme weather, such as Mumbai's characteristic
monsoons. The local dabbawalas at the receiving
and the sending ends are known to the customers
personally, so that there is no question of lack
of trust. Also, they are well accustomed to the
local areas they cater to, which allows them to
access any destination with ease. Occasionally,
people communicate between home and work by
putting messages inside the boxes. However, this
was usually before the accessibility of instant
telecommunications.
In literature:
One of the two protagonists in Salman Rushdie's
controversial novel The Satanic Verses, Gibreel
Farishta, was born as Ismail Najmuddin to a
dabbawallah. In the novel, Farishta joins his
father, delivering lunches all over Bombay
(Mumbai) at the age of 10, until he is taken off
the streets and becomes a movie star.
Dabbawalas feature as an alibi in the Inspector
Ghote novel Dead on Time.
Etymology:
The word "Dabbawala" can be translated as
"box-carrier" or "lunchpail-man". In Marathi and
Hindi, "dabba" means a box (usually a
cylindrical aluminium container), while "wala"
means someone in a trade involving the object
mentioned in the preceding term, e.g. punkhawala
with "pankha" which means a fan and "wala" mean
the person who owns the pankha (The one with the
fan). |