INDIA- BOMBAY LUNCHBOX

May 2002

DUR 10'10"

MUMBAI LANDSCAPES AND STREET SCENES

BIKAJI RIDING HIS MOTORBIKE, DELIVERING FOOD

MRS LALAPORIA COOKING IN KITCHEN

DABBAWALLAS SORTING LUNCH BOXES

BUSY MUMBAI TRAIN

DABBAS BEING DELIVERED IN OFFICE BLOCK

DABBAS BEING EATEN IN OFFICE AND BEING DELIVERED

MUMBAI STREET SCENES

MUMBAI RESTAURANT

MUMBAI STREET SCENES

A muggy monsoon dawn in Mumbai, it's the brief quiet before the daily storm of activity sweeps across India's commercial capital. This city of seventeen million is infamous for its crowds and its chaos, but Mumbai is also renowned for its meals on wheels.

Whatever the weather, Bikaji religiously does his morning rounds. While many people are barely finishing breakfast, he's collecting lunches for desk-bound workers. He's the nexus between home and office, husband and housewife, mother and son.

SYNC MRS LALAPORIA:
CURRY AND RICE I COOKED, CHICKEN CURRY AND RICE AND SALAD.

Mrs Lalaporia puts the notion of a cooked lunch to shame.

SYNC MRS LALAPORIA:
POTATOES, ONIONS, EVERYTHING IS HERE.

She's been making long distance lunches for nearly half a century, first for her now retired husband and then for her son, Menosh.

SYNC MRS LALAPORIA:
I DON'T LIKE MY SON TO EAT OUTSIDE, OUTSIDE FOOD IS NO GOOD. DIRTY, THE FOOD IS NOT SO HEALTHY.

And no, Menosh Is not a schoolboy, he's forty three and married but his working wife certainly won't make Menosh lunch and don't even suggest that he might step into the kitchen.

SYNC MENOSH:
NO WAY! I'M NOT A GOOD COOK, I DON'T KNOW COOKING.

But the problem for domestically challenged Menosh is that he leaves for work long before even the onions have started frying. So somehow mother and son need to be united. Enter the mighty tiffin or Dabba, the great Indian lunchbox.

But a Dabba is not much use without a Walla, together they make one of Mumbai's most remarkable institutions, the Dabbawalla.

Since 1890, a closed community has been providing a low tech, lunch delivery service. Bikaji picks up about a dozen Dabbas and brings them to the local station. Here they are sorted according to an intricate system of codes, colours and numbers and passed on to the next stage in the network. Thanks to trust and cooperation, Dabbas are passed from one team to the next, zigzagging across the city.

The system is all the more ingenious when you consider most of Mumbai's five thousand Dabbawallas can barely read or write and they must contend with one of the worlds most congested civic infrastructures. Yet there success rate is astounding, the Dabbawallas get more than 99.99% of their deliveries right. But, despite a strike rate even the don would have admired, their days may be numbered.

What began as a service for British Administrators, too pretentious to be seen carrying their lunch, peaked in the 1950s and is today slowly petering out. Still, 150,000 workers in this concrete jungle will today get their home cooked meal on time.

Forbes magazine rates the Dabbawalla's productivity on a par with the biggest global corporations and for a monthly fee of just six dollars, the likes of Menosh think they are a legend In his lunchtime.

SYNC MENOSH:
IF IT'S NOT THERE FOR A DAY, I FIND IT DIFFICULT. I HAVE TO GO TO A RESTAURANT, STAND IN A LONG QUEUE AND GOD KNOWS WHAT I'M EATING THERE.

SYNC INTERVIEWER:
IT'S RISKY?

SYNC MENOSH:
IT'S RISKY, YEAH.

SYNC INTERVIEWER:
BOMBAY BELLY?

SYNC MENOSH:
YES IT IS, IT IS RISKY. YOU CAN'T BE 100% SURE, I WOULD SAY THAT.

In a city with as many food rules as there are religions, matching the Dabba to the desk is much more than just pleasing fussy eaters. If a Muslim’s beef biryani got mixed up with a Jain's strictly vegetarian Daal and rice, it wouldn't be pretty. But, reliability is not the Dabbawallas downfall. As more Mumbai women work, fewer are cooking, the likes of Menosh know that his mum's lunches can't last forever.

SYNC MENOSH:
I'LL TRY MY LUCK WITH MY WIFE, IF SHE SAYS NO THEN I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'LL DO.

SYNC WOMAN:
YES, I THINK THAT IS AN IMPORTANT REASON WHY, PERHAPS, THE DABBAWALLAS JOBS ARE NOW GOING, IS BECAUSE THE WOMAN HAS STARTED WORKING.

SYNC WOMAN:
SHE'S GOT A JOB AND THEREFORE SHE'S NOT AT HOME TO PREPARE FOOD AND SEND TO HER LOVING HUSBAND.

And the demise of the housewife is only part of the story, the opening up of the Indian economy over the last decade has also changed the face of Mumbai. With more money to spend, India's expanding middle class is venturing out and generating a new brand of food consumer.

SYNC WOMAN:
WE HAVE NICE RESTAURANTS OPENING UP BUT MOST OF THEM ARE NOT REALLY GOOD. THEY ARE LAYING A LOT MORE EMPHASIS ON AMBIENCE, ON VERY FANCY SOUNDING NAMES BUT I HAVE HAD THE EXPERIENCE OF EATING A REALLY LOUSY DINNER AT A VERY POSH RESTAURANT RECENTLY AND I WAS QUITE AGAST BECAUSE WE ENDED UP PAYING TWELVE THOUSAND RUPEES AND THE ONLY GOOD THING THAT DAY WAS THE CALIFORNIAN WINE WE DRANK.

The ubiquitous global food chains are grabbing some of that market but so too are a new flavour of savvy local eateries.

SYNC RESTAURANT OWNER:
YOU WON'T FIND THE AVERAGE CLERK OR REGULAR OFFICE WORKER GOING TO MCDONALDS TOO OFTEN, SURE HE'LL TRY IT OUT ONCE OR TWICE, BUT HE'S GOING TO COME BACK TO BASICS.

Dosa Diner is a new chain selling funky Indian food but which is not too adventurous.

SYNC RESTAURANT OWNER:
WE DON'T REALLY SEE OURSELVES AS COMPETING TRADITIONALLY AGAINST ANOTHER RESTAURANT. WE ARE TRYING TO GET PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR HOUSES, SO TO THAT EXTENT WE'RE REALLY COMPETING WITH HOME FOOD.

SYNC INTERVIEWER:
SO THAT MEANS THE DABBAWALLAS?

SYNC RESTAURANT OWNER:
SADLY, THAT’S THE DABBAWALLAS.

For Mumbai's Hindu Nationalist leaders and self-appointed cultural custodians, at stake is much more than just the fate of the Dabbawallas. They fear the very fabric of Indian society is unravelling, that the sacred bond between husband and wife may soon be broken.

SYNC PRAMOD MALWAKA:
WHAT LITTLE DIALOGUE WE HAVE, BETWEEN ME AND MY WIFE, IS ABOUT THE FOOD WHICH SHE COOKS YOU KNOW. IF SHE STOPS COOKING THEN THE DIALOGUE WILL STOP.

Yet the humble Dabbawallas seem the most at ease, they're convinced they'll keep earning their 200 dollars a month for some time to come. After all, they have the union to look after them, the honourable company of Tiffin box carriers.

After lunch, as the Dabbawallas reverse their morning journey returning the empty Tiffins, it's hard to imagine Mumbai without them. Their city may be changing and demand for this extraordinary cooperative may be diminishing, but the Dabbawallas believe their culinary courier service will survive or else the mighty Indian family might not.