No one knows Mumbai like they do. The dabbawallahs of Mumbai. They course through it without rest. Supplying tiffins, connecting thousands of kitchens precisely to dining tables scattered along the 63 km stretch of this strange city where offices mushroom at one end and homes at the other.For the last 113 years, it has almost always been mission accomplished for these men in white. It’s an army of five thousand sun-tanned faces with sturdy arms and calves, dressed in sadra-kurta and white Gandhi topis.Prince Charles was only one among numerous others who got interested. He spent 15 minutes with them in teeming Churchgate station. They exchanged greetings, gifted him a Gandhi topi and then went off to mind their tiffins.The show must go on. Like it does for this aluminium dabba with ‘3’ written at the centre and ‘12, MT 7’ marked in red along its periphery and ‘10 K’ written below. It starts its day stuffed hot with lunch from Thakur complex in Kandivli, north Mumbai, at 9.20 am. With 29 others from nearby localities, it travels a length of about 40 km in suburban locals and handcarts and reaches Mittal Towers in Churchgate, south Mumbai at 11.15 pm.Dagdabai Yadav, 35—yes there are three women in this team—has been carrying these 30 tiffins for the last 15 years. The ‘3’ on the dabba means Nariman Point, ‘MT’ stands for Mittal Towers, ‘7’ for seventh floor, ‘12’ is the number of the man who will take this from Churchgate to Nariman Point. The ‘10’ means the dabba has to be offloaded at Churchgate and ‘K’ means it came from Kandivli. In a six-hour workday, she decodes and delivers precisely 30 tiffins weighing about 40 kg—six days a week for Rs 5000 a month.Her puny frame and weathered Kolhapuri chappals speak of the rigours of the job. And she doesn’t know that she shares the platform with blue-chip groups like Motorola. It happened a few months back when Forbes gave Mumbai’s dabbawallas a Six Sigma for their precision deliveries. Six Sigma is a term in quality assurance if the percentage of correctness is 99.999999 or more. That means there is only one error in 6 million transactions. And they have been doing this job for over a century — from the 20-25 tiffins transported in horse-pulled trams and handcrafts in 1890, to the lakhs of tiffins today.It started with Mahadeo Bacche from Shivneri, which a few centuries ago saw the first powerful Maratha king emerge. ‘‘Our ancestors, the Mawlas formed Shivaji’s famed army,’’ says Raghunath Medge, secretary, Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association.‘‘We, from villages of Junnar, Rajgurunagar, Ambegaon, all in Pune district, are born with strength and dexterity. Bacche put it to use.’’ It’s this strength that makes them go on and on. Come rain or shine, the dabbawallah will always reach your office with food from home on time.
