Dabbawala of Mumbai

We are Dabbawala, (one who carries the box), in the Indian city of Mumbai. We carry and deliver freshly
made food from customers home in a lunch box (Dabba) and deliver it to offices. It may sound
simple, but its not.
It is actually a highly specialized trade that has evolved in its current form over a century and has become
integral to Mumbais culture. We are about 5000 in number and deliver approximately 200,000 tiffin
boxes every day.
How it allstarted:
It all started about 125 years back when a Parasi banker wanted to have home cooked food regularly in
office and gave this responsibility to the first ever Dabbawala. Other people also liked the idea and the
demand for Dabba delivery soared. It was all informal and individual effort in the beginning, but
visionary Mahadeo Havaji Bachche saw the opportunity and started the lunch delivery service in its
present team-delivery format with 100 Dabbawalas.
As the city grew, the demand for dabba delivery grew too. Our forefathers had the vision to create the
Dabba coding system thats going on strong even today.The Coding system evolved through various
stages with time. In the beginning it was simple colour coding. Now Mumbai is a widely spread metro
with 3 local train routes. Our coding has also evolved into alpha numeric characters.
Recognition:
We are mostly semi literate people of Warkari sect from rural Maharashtra. We feel a sense of pride that
our work and dedication is appreciated world over.Eminent personalities like Prince Charles have visited
us. Prince even invited us to his wedding.
If you ask us who is the most famous Dabbawala in the world? We will say Mr Richard Branson! He
actually travelled with us like a Dabbawala and delivered a huge tiffin to his own employees at Virgin,
Mumbai. We are recognised as delivering 6 sigma level of accuracy in our dabba delivery. That means
only 1 mistake in 6 million chances.
WHAT GOES DABBA
The word dabbawala in Hindi when literally translated, means one who carries a box. Dabba means
a box (usually a cylindrical tin or aluminium container). The closest meaning of the dabbawala in English
would be the lunch box delivery man.
So, literaly speaking, a Dabba contains Lunch.But if you ask us, there is much more then lunch that goes
in the dabba.The foremost is love and caring of the housewives who make sure their loved ones get the
healthy food from home.And trust! That they have on dabbawala. If the Dabba system is going strong
even after 125 years, we must thank the Mumbai housewives.
Trust is also seen in everything that we do. A typical dabba changes hands 3-4 times in its journey
Sometimes even 6 times. So the chances that the dabbawala who took the tiffin box from home will
deliver the same dabba to final destination is almost remote.If you ask us what actually goes in a tiffin
box, we cant tell you. We dont open the boxes. But customers have told us that they even share
messages from home to office through these dabbas! A Cinema ticket, a floweran apology noteA

dabba weighs about 1.5 KG. We guess, pulses, vegetables, about 4 chapatis and rice is also there in the
Dabba.How we know? Thats what we get from home in our Dabba!