Dubbawallas: Lunch on the Run

Documentary short being developed for full-length

Every day without fail, the dubbawallas run a daily marathon through the crowded and sometimes unkind streets of Bombay–to deliver a home-cooked meal to thousands of workers all over the city. The dubbawallas are an integral part of the daily lives of many Bombayites and have been for more than a century. Thousands of workers depend on the dubbawallas for their meals—as lunch from home is usually a preference—for religious or health requirements—or just personal taste.

Even in blistering heat or several feet of water during the monsoons the dubbawallas deliver on-time, everytime. They don’t use barcodes or scanners, but keep track of each lunchbox (called a tiffin or dubba) using symbols to designate the destination and bearer of each meal. Many dubbawallas are in fact illiterate, but the system is so efficient that they were given a Six Sigma designation by Forbes magazine—alongside Motorola and GE—with an error rate of less than one in 6,000,000. Join the dubbawallas as they deliver Lunch on the Run.