Before the COVID-19 pandemic swept through Mumbai, it was a familiar scene to watch men clad in a white outfit and a Gandhi cap lugging lunch boxes, or dabbas, across the teeming streets of the city. These men, called dabbawalas (literally translated to “one who carry the dabbas”), are the lifeline of a critical food delivery system for the bustling metropolis.
Dabbawalas deliver home-cooked meals to Mumbaikars working at government offices, companies, and factories. Every morning, a dabbawala collects several dabbas from home kitchens across the city and pedals to the nearest train station on a bicycle. On any given day, the dabbas change hands multiple times; the dabbawala who first collects the lunch is unlikely to make the delivery to its final destination. The lunches are sorted, loaded into a train, and taken to various regions across Mumbai. The dabbawalas ensure each dabba is promptly dropped at the client's workplace on a hand cart just before lunchtime. Codes, numbers, and letters marked on the dabbas in various colors determine the pickup point, delivery point, and the dabbawala’s name. With zero technology usage (except for Mumbai's train network), the dabbawalas' highly dependable, low-cost system runs on the principles of efficiency, coordination, availability, and timeliness.