Mumbai Dabbawalas
INTRODUCTION
A dabbawala; also spelled as dabbawalla or dabbawallah; is a person in India, most commonly in Mumbai, who collects freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of mostly-suburban office workers, delivering it to their respective workplaces and returning the empty boxes back to the customer's residence by using various modes of transport. "Tiffin" is an Anglo-Indian word, derived from obsolete English slang "tiffing" (to sip), for a light lunch or afternoon snack, and sometimes, by extension, for the box it is carried in. For this reason, the dabbawalas are sometimes called tiffin wallahs.
The closest meaning of the dabbawala in English would be the "lunch box delivery man". Though this profession seems to be simple, it is actually a highly specialized service in Mumbai which is over a century old and has become integral to the cultural life of this city.
The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust
This service originated in 1880. In 1890, Mahadeo Havaji Bachche and Ananth Mandra Reddy started a lunch delivery service with about a hundred men. In 1930, he informally attempted to unionize the dabbawallas. Later, a charitable trust was registered in 1956 under the name of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust. The commercial arm of this trust was registered in 1968 as Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier's Association. The current president of the association is Raghunath Medge.
Mumbai is one of the most populated cities on earth with huge flows of traffic. Because of this, lengthy commutes to workplaces are common, with many workers travelling by train.
Instead of going home for lunch or paying for a meal, many office workers have a cooked meal sent from their home, or sometimes from a caterer who cooks and delivers the meal in lunch boxes and then have the empty lunch boxes collected and re-sent the same day. This is usually done for a monthly fee of about ₹450. The meal is cooked in the morning and sent in lunch boxes carried by dabbawalas,
A dabbawala; also spelled as dabbawalla or dabbawallah; is a person in India, most commonly in Mumbai, who collects freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of mostly-suburban office workers, delivering it to their respective workplaces and returning the empty boxes back to the customer's residence by using various modes of transport. "Tiffin" is an Anglo-Indian word, derived from obsolete English slang "tiffing" (to sip), for a light lunch or afternoon snack, and sometimes, by extension, for the box it is carried in. For this reason, the dabbawalas are sometimes called tiffin wallahs.
The closest meaning of the dabbawala in English would be the "lunch box delivery man". Though this profession seems to be simple, it is actually a highly specialized service in Mumbai which is over a century old and has become integral to the cultural life of this city.
The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust
This service originated in 1880. In 1890, Mahadeo Havaji Bachche and Ananth Mandra Reddy started a lunch delivery service with about a hundred men. In 1930, he informally attempted to unionize the dabbawallas. Later, a charitable trust was registered in 1956 under the name of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust. The commercial arm of this trust was registered in 1968 as Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier's Association. The current president of the association is Raghunath Medge.
Mumbai is one of the most populated cities on earth with huge flows of traffic. Because of this, lengthy commutes to workplaces are common, with many workers travelling by train.
Instead of going home for lunch or paying for a meal, many office workers have a cooked meal sent from their home, or sometimes from a caterer who cooks and delivers the meal in lunch boxes and then have the empty lunch boxes collected and re-sent the same day. This is usually done for a monthly fee of about ₹450. The meal is cooked in the morning and sent in lunch boxes carried by dabbawalas,