Mumbai’s Dabbawalas delivered thousands of lunches a day—lockdown changed everything.
did not deter them, when COVID-19 hit India last year, it threw a spanner in their works. The lockdown announced in the country in late March meant no citywide travel. People resorted to working from home, and the demand for dabbas—and therefore, dabbawalas—dwindled. The government also imposed restrictions on travel by train—the backbone of Mumbai's economy and the dabbawalas' primary mode of transport.
This unprecedented event resulted in a huge loss of livelihood for the group. Most returned to their hometowns and took up farming instead. Those who stayed in the city resorted to working as drivers or security for gated communities, or began selling vegetables to make ends meet."Many had to pawn jewelry or take a loan to have two square meals in a day," says dabbawala Shashikant Gaikar, over the phone from Mumbai.
In October of 2020, when the megalopolitan started to re-open, some dabbawalas returned to work. Just when things began to look up, the second deadly COVID-19 wave hit, bringing India to its knees. The country went into lockdown again."From October until now [summer 2021], between 300 to 500 dabbawalas are delivering dabbas in the city," says Ritesh Shantaram Andre, a spokesperson for Mumbai Dabbawala. Today, their workforce has been reduced to 10 percent of its original size.
With changing times, however, a few have embraced creativity, and collaborated with restaurants to deliver food to customers."Bringing the dabbawalas on board as our delivery partners is the perfect example of aligning synergies and forging ahead through meaningful collaborations," says Mayank Bhatt, Business Head of
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