The Mumbai dabbawallahs (translation: "box people") are no ordinary men. Every day, a small army of these urban warriors delivers between 175,000-200,000 lunch boxes to a grateful clientele comprised mostly of downtown businessmen. Starting their rounds in the morning, the dabbawallahs—on foot, bike, and/or train—swing by the often far-flung addresses of their customers, where they pick up homemade meals from whichever patni (wife), matha (mother), or saas (mother-in-law), is doing the cooking. Then it’s downtown, sorting the pails on train platforms according to an ingenious system of color-coding, and eventually arriving at one or another office building with seemingly impossible punctuality. Barefoot and largely illiterate, the dabbawallahs make a mistake only once in every 6 million deliveries, a figure that earned them Forbes' six sigma standard and no doubt leaves FedEx execs shaking their heads in disbelief. Carrying on an over-100 year tradition, the way of the dabbawallah has changed very little; they are men of honor, integrity, and incredible calf muscles rivaled only by mailmen and the guys who walk up and down the beach selling drinks. And yet withstanding their old-fashioned virtues, the dabbawallahs are no technophobes; as of recently, you can book them via SMS.
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