Dressed in white thigh-length kurtas, loose pyjamas and traditional Gandhi caps, dabbawalas have been service providers for their Mumbaikars for decades on end. The iconic dabbawalas have contributed in their own unique way to the growth story of the country’s commercial capital since 1890.
The now internationally-known dabbawalas — whose service is often described as that of Six Sigma standard— have witnessed the transformation of Bombay to Mumbai over the past 135 years.
A museum-cum-experience centre that depicts the contribution of dabbawalas to Mumbai will be inaugurated at Bandra in north-west Mumbai, on August 14. The Mumbai Dabbawala International Experience Center (MDIEC), a gallery depicting the life, times and contribution of dabbawalas, will be inaugurated by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on the eve of Independence Day in the presence of the closely-knit Mumbai Dabbawala community and its leaders Ulhas Shantaram Muke and Ramdas Baban Karvande.
The dabbawalas — whose dwindled sharply from over 5,000 during the peak in 1970s-2000s ferrying over two lakh tiffin-boxes to now barely 1,500 rushing to deliver less than a lakh lunch-boxes post the Covid-19 pandemic — are steadily becoming a vanishing tribe.