In Mumbai, the morning rush is not just about getting people to work. It is also about getting their lunch there. Every day, thousands of home-cooked meals leave kitchens across the city, travel by bicycle and local train, and reach office desks before lunchtime.
The people behind this daily operation are Mumbai's dabbawalas. And while their work is a familiar sight in the city, content creator Yuvankkshi Venugopal recently got to see what goes on behind it.
She spent a day accompanying a dabbawala and shared the experience on Instagram. “I spent a day as a Mumbai Dabbawala, and I'm still thinking about it,” she wrote.
She Saw How It Really Works
Venugopal's day gave her a closer look at how the dabbawalas manage to move so many lunchboxes across Mumbai. There were no delivery apps or GPS involved. Instead, she saw the dabbawalas rely on the codes marked on the bags, bicycles, local trains and their own knowledge of the city.
Every morning, dabbawalas collect tiffins from homes. The boxes are brought to sorting points, including railway stations, where they are arranged according to their destinations. The codes on the boxes and bags help them identify where each dabba needs to go. Venugopal pointed out that letters such as “G” and “K” can indicate places such as Goregaon and Kandivali.
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From there, the dabbas continue their journey through Mumbai's local train network before being taken to offices and delivered to the right person. Venugopal followed one of the dabbawalas through Churchgate traffic, up office staircases, and into JBIMS during her day with them.
And then came lunchtime. Instead of simply watching the process, she ended the day sitting with the dabbawalas and sharing a meal with them on the pavement.
That was the part she remembered most. “Next time your lunch arrives on time, thank a dabbawala,” she wrote.
How The City Eats At Work
The delivery is only half the job. Once people have eaten, the empty tiffins have to make their way back home. After a short break, the dabbawalas collect the empty boxes from offices and begin sorting them again. The dabbas then travel back through the city, eventually reaching the homes and kitchens they came from.
So the same network handles both sides of the journey every day. Lunch goes from home to office in the morning, and the empty tiffin returns home later. And this has been happening for more than a century.
The Mumbai Dabbawala organization traces its history back to 1890. It started when a Parsi banker wanted home-cooked food at his office. The idea caught on, and more people began asking for their lunches to be delivered.
Today, the organization says it has an army of around 5,000 dabbawalas delivering home-cooked food to nearly 200,000 Mumbaikars. The men in their white outfits and traditional Gandhi caps have become one of the most recognizable sights of Mumbai.
You Can Actually Spend A Day With The Dabbawalas
The Mumbai Dabbawala organization offers visitors the opportunity to accompany its dabbawalas and see the delivery process for themselves. The experience takes participants through the system from the sorting point to the destination. It includes traveling with the dabbawalas on a local train and seeing how the coding and sorting system works.
There are separate workshops as well, conducted by professional trainers along with dabbawalas. These use their experiences to discuss leadership, teamwork and decision-making, along with activities, interviews and other exercises.
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Even Prince Charles met the dabbawalas in 2003 to understand their work.
It is a routine Mumbai has followed for over 130 years. And for the people who depend on a home-cooked meal at work every day, the dabbawala is as much a part of that routine as the local train itself.