Tiffin Story

Interviews with Medge,the president of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association,binds the narrative of a book,now translated from Marathi,Mumbai’s Dabbawala – The Uncommon Story of the Common Man by Shobha Bondre,64,with translation by Shalaka Walimbe.

The narrative tries to trace the journey from Bhonawala (Gujarati term for someone who carries lunch) to Dabbawala – an enterprise now older than a century. It talks about the first Maval-born dabbawala Mahadu Bacche to today’s 5,000-strong “food-soldiers”,and includes anecdotes of a time when even the late don Hajji Mastan had showed interest in “giving his name” by adopting this efficient food courier network (Of course,he was rejected as the dabbawalas feared he would smuggle gold biscuits through tiffin boxes),to the struggles of early pavement dwelling dabbawalas who would buy tickets to watch tamashas,a traditional Maharashtrian folk performance,at Vile Parle during the monsoon of 1890s just to “get a night’s sleep” on the last benches of the tent to the current day management school presentations on dabbawalas.

Though,the book opens with the headlined story of dabbawala attending the Windsor Palace wedding ceremony of Prince Charles and Camilla,it quickly manages to shift its focus to the interesting events that shaped the re-modelling of dabbawalas,ensuring its place as a successful Six Sigma management model Forbes Global,eventually paving way for a global recognition,including a royal wedding invite.

“They were always in the news. I got curious and I had to know more about them,beyond the news stories,” says Shobha who spent eight months interacting with the dabbawalas at their work space,inside train compartments,at their ‘sorting- points’ in Churchgate and Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus. With Marathi as the “comfortable” language of interviews,Shobha also managed to get a rare insight to the period between 1980 and 1990 when the entire business model saw a rehaul by the now president Medge.

“In the beginning it was confusing. So many dabbawalas with so many side stories. It was after I met Medge that I realised that it was his background that helped him set new codification to the service,” she says. “He was studying to be a lawyer and was constantly improving his English,his attire and his standing in his college. It was only due to the death of his father,who was the president of the tiffin service,that he moved to this profession.”

In the book,Shobha warns that the ‘designation’ was never tailor-made for Medge,as it was a time when the association was going through debts,with problems or mis-management,illiteracy,poverty and liquor fights between the dabbawalas. The curse,he realised was because the dabbas were not reaching on time with lack of team-spirt and discipline,three of the most basic managerial qualities.

Medge then turned to English,a language he had spent a life mastering,for a shift of codifications from colourful threads to alphabets—to ensure zero errors and smart time management.

While the book tries to show the “human side” of the dabbawalas where they have confessed to having got into quarrels with fellow co-passengers,to a substitute dabbawala’s wife once stealing money from inside a dabba-they have also moved to efficient handling of system by introducing internal dabbawala court-where the guilty is punished and also has to pay fine.

“Today they have one simple aim,get the dabba on time. It’s a simple faith. They follow it every day and try to decrease the time every time,as the tiffin passes hands like in a relay. It’s one business where they deal with humans every day and they cannot afford to get it wrong,” says Shobha.