@@BRAZILIAN_MIKU They took some lunches by car. Through a congested city they were unfamiliar with. And they exercised their usual amount of conscientiousness.
There's just something so unifying to me about seeing so many other people sharing the same brain cell and remembering that Top Gear episode the moment they see this video.
Effeciency is so high that theres a whole movie with the plotline being based around a delivery being mixed up repeatedly which ended up turning into a pen pal situation and then an affair
sounds about as ridiculous as the plot to 50 first dates but americans watched the shit out of that... with over a billion indians the lowest common denominator must be pretty lucrative!
Its logistical brilliance how they do this... My grandpa used to work in Mumbai for a govt job, his office was abt 5-6km from his quarters,yet everyday at 1PM his tiffin (dabba) always used to be on the table. He took me, when I was little, to see how dabbawalas worked-- at Churchgate station
Nah people leave for work early because of the traffic and stringent time these offices follow....and people here prefer homemade food over anything elese@@toolbaggers
@@toolbaggers You misunderstand. This food is prepared fresh in the morning, and is not just a sandwich. You can't exactly cook food at 6 in the morning.
@@gnanasabaapatirg7376so you wake up early enough to make the lunch and put it on your porch for the driver to get but too late to put that same can in your briefcase?
Hahaha I'm Indian and I'm not from Mumbai. I've lived there a couple of years and always wondered what the racks that held lunch boxes outside office buildings were. Just so you know, this is a uniquely Mumbai system - right from the efficiency to trust to the steadfastedness...
Hey US Police! Learn from this and you MIGHT stop getting bad press for destroying the wrong address and killing people whose only crime is YOUR mistake.
A pokey little motoring show on the BBC showed that clearly using British cars is superior because you can arrive 45 seconds earlier with only 80% or more broken
Last time, a Dabba wala delivered two boxes late, the person went hungry. Inefficiency came in , And India’s GDP tanked by 0.02%. The government had to intervene and set up a meeting of Cabinet Council for security to check if it was China’s plan.
@@whyamiwastingmytimeonthis UPI is a payment method like cash app or paypal but is open source and free to use created by govt of india, so basically people in cities and towns have stopped paying with cash and rather shops have QR codes you can scan to pay, even roadside street vendors have them and if you have a credit card, you can setup auto pay through UPI for bill payments. So it's a very versatile product that can be even used without internet and has been made voice enabled to improve accessibility
Hey, I am from mumbai and I used this service for about 3 months ish when I was working in a different part of the city and I can confirm, these guys kick ass
@@aishikpanja3931 I wasn't making breakfast in the morning, you think I was gonna make lunch? There's a lot of women who run tiffin service out of their homes, you can have them cook you nice food, these dabba walls will bring it to you
@@YashAtishaythis seems like an important point. Getting food from elsewhere definitely adds to the usefulness of the service. Also lots of people are saying the food actually gets picked up much closer to lunch than the “9:30am” quoted in this video. Would you agree? Seems like a 9:30-12:30 transit time would leave the food pretty cold.
For all those saying why dont they take theur own tiffins 1) only about 3% of the population uses the service so clearly most of the people do take thier lunch with them. 2) for the people whose offices are far and who travel for an hour or two, might not have their lunch ready by the time they leave. It is easier for the family to prepare the lunch in their own time and then let dabbawalas take it. 3) A lot of bachlors are dependent on this service since their lunch comes from a cloud kitchen of sorts and hence they don't have to worry about preparing lunches. It just makes lives a little but more convenient. Edit- I believe central kitchen will be a more appropriate term here. It is a large kitchen in a building preparing meals for lots of people and sending it out through dabbawalas
@@simplystreeptacularit’s another term for ghost kitchen. A ghost kitchen is a restaurant that only offers takeout or delivery and can be in some cheap building or even just inside another restaurant. Sometimes the food is so good people will pay for it and don’t care for the restaurant that’s why some places operate only as kitchens as it’s cheaper.
Thanks, I was just about to ask why the workers don't simply take their lunch to work with them. as an american bachelor, I forget that in other cultures people have family at home that prepare meals for them
Being from Mumbai it gives me immense pride that HAI made a video about Mumbai's Dabbawalas. Fun fact: dabbawalas have attended the Royal Wedding in 2005 and also had breakfast with Queen Elizabeth in her Palace
Using the railway system as a backbone of the service seems like something that western "urbanists" would absolutely adore and consider a revolutionary idea.
I am from Mumbai and I even recognized the plastic carry bag worn by the dabbawala at 5:41 It is from D. Damodar Mithaiwala, which is a very old and renowned sweet shop. Never thought I had see something so close to my home on a HAI video!
I don't think you can compare this to food delivery apps considering this system seems to be for actual sustenance and not just spur of the moment desire purchases.
Great video, but as a Mumbaikar, couldn't stop laughing at "Ville Parle". On the face of it, that pronunciation would make perfect sense to an English speaker based on the spelling, but we pronounce it "Vil-ey Par-lay" (rhyming)
"why don't they just carry their lunch" Why don't you just Google? 1. Ppl hardly prepare their lunches at 7 in the morning 2. Saves on the space and rush of having to prepare and carry the food with you to lunch 3. You get a hot home cooked meal instead of having to reheat something or eat it cold 4. The dabbawala system is deeply rooted in Mumbai's culture and tradition. It not only provides a practical service but also fosters a sense of community among workers and dabbawalas.
Having no personal experience with this, I followed your advice and "just Google[d]". 1. The time you have to go to work has no bearing on this. My ex used to start work at 4 in the morning and would still make herself lunch every day before she went. I start work at 8 in the morning, so guess what I do at 7? Just stop being lazy, wake up earlier, and do it. It isn't that hard. 2. See previous, re: laziness. 3. According to a journal article about the schedule of a dabbawala (which lines up pretty well with what is stated in the video here), the food is collected from 8:30 to 10 in the morning. So it must be prepared before that, meaning it is being prepared roughly the same time as it would be if it were just being carried. Maybe it is a half hour to an hour fresher...which is meaningless a few hours later at lunch time. The food will have the same properties in regard to how cold it is unless the dabbawalas are transporting them under heat lamps (which clearly seems to not be the case). 4. This is the only real reason. It doesn't really make logical sense to do this, but it is tradition. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to continue this tradition, but trying to argue that this system is logistically beneficial just falls flat on its face. Even the low error provided at the start of the video trying to make this system seem virtually perfect seems to be based on some guesstimates with zero support. It was derived from a vague statement made by one man that the dabbawalas make mistakes "almost never, maybe once every two months."
'Man/person' is actually a fairly accurate descriptor but more in the profession sort of sense. Like the 'man' in 'fisherman' or 'salesman'. I wouldn't say it's "one who has" exactly. It works for vendors like "chaiwala" or "maachwala" for example, but it's also used in terms of things like "stationwala" meaning station worker or stationman where "one who has" doesn't quite make sense.
I'm an Indian! Nice to see you cover this! (I remember first watching your videos when I was 14! Been a long time since I came back to your channel! I'm 21 now!)
I've been a subscriber of this channel for a year now and I also stay in Mumbai. Having seen many case studies on dabbawalas all these years, I can say half as interesting has done a fantastic job in making this case study interesting with his sarcasm as well as with the data viz skills. Amazing job bro! The apartment where i stay, has 5-6 houses relying on dabbawalas for their tiffin deliveries and these guys are interestingly efficient in their supply chain.
I often see Dabbawalas outside the station during my commute, and I remember one time when they all had brought a cake and were celebrating someone’s birthday. So wholesome! Also, I wish Mumbai’s rail network was as extensive as shown here. It’s only 3 lines, all going from south to north.
One more thing , daba-walas often time are some of the first responders at accidents if some thing severe happens call the police and ambulance even some have first aid kits with them , semi-police ( if someone fights with someone try to mitigate that , if some crime happens they are the first informants to police , some daba-wala even have walkie talkies uf they are the main person at certain stations who manages the supervision duty , someone gets into accudent at station they will switch the frequency and call the railway police and normal police too . In india we have more types of police like forest police ( they are different than forest rangers ) , military police , railway police , special zone police ( dockyards police they are different from customs officers ) than there are coast police ( they are more life government appointed coast gaurds who investigate and are first responders when something happens very near to coasts and shores they are different from military coast gaurds but are first line of protection for civilians ) . So good luck understanding india 😂😂😂 .
@@Eloraurora Maybe it goes the other way around. Sam goes out and finds absurd stock photos and videos, and then tries to determine subject for a video that fits the findings 😂
This method of distributing work reminds me about how Sociocracy works. I work for an organization that uses a similar method to make decisions and manage projects. It is a great way to self organize small groups that more people should known.
The network diagram at 0:37 is what Mumbai suburban + metro network will look like in around 5-7 years. A few of those lines are under construction now. The diagram is also missing some existing lines in the far north, east and south sections.
I feel like we should have mentioned who makes the food. It's coming "from home", but no acknowledgement of the wives, daughters, sisters, etc who are making and packaging this food in time for it to be picked up and delivered.
I see these guys everyday and trust me these are hard working and good people. Whoever lived or been to mumbai knows how Mumbai's climate is I've seen these people working hard in extreme heat and rainfall. Huge respect for these guys ❤❤❤.
So I'm confused, who is making the meals? It seems they are being delivered from homes, not restaurants. Are people making their meals in the morning and then having them delivered to their workplace in the afternoon?
India still has "traditional family values". If a man makes a salary good enough to employ the dabbawallas you can bet your arse his wife will take pride in making sure he gets a hot meal, worthy of his status, every single day unless she's so sick she can't stand up.
@vishalmalik0519 It was a genuine question I asked out of curiosity. Seems we have some cultural differences, as many adults here are responsible for their own lunches and don't expect their family to fulfill that duty. Except for more socially conservative regions of the United States where men expect their spouse to prepare a packed lunch.
@@kylewolfe_ ignore that person, ill try to give you the reason which is closer to the real one. 1. Mumbai is expensive af for an avg indian. Many bachelors live here in shared flats without their families. They dont have the luxury to buy a full fledged kitchen and neither the time to cook food early in the morning, as indian food is made on the spot and dosent use premade refridgerated bread, veggies. You need to first roll chapatis (common staple bread in mumbai), heat them on a pan, then prepare a bhaji (cooked vegetables). This takes 30 mins to 1 hour. 2. now you would think 45 mins avg is not a lot of time. But people need to reach their offices at 6-7-8 and even with trains it takes 30 mins to an hour to reach office. One dosent want to tire themself early in the morning. And if we compare the costs, overall the "dabbas" are cheaper then buying and cooking it yourself. 3. You dont have to handle the washing and cleaning of utensils used to make and transport the food. 4. The food is homemade, generally by women who are illiterate and cant do other jobs, this acts as a way of sustenance for them. OR some dabbas are even made by family members who just use the dabbawala system to transport it.
Okay okaaay, I mean I wasn't *gonna* , but I'm gonna order food now, to verify the service in my city isn't as decent. Everything for science, amirite?
But you will get professionally cooked restaurant food delivered. Unlike these office workers that won't bring their wife's/mom's home cooking to work with them in the morning.
@@toolbaggers you're so mad people are eating homemade, fresh food & supporting basic jobs in their community, must be real toxic wherever you are from
@@toolbaggers Buddy is so angry, he replying to every comment about how they don't bring food from home, also why do u say wife's/mom's home cooking instead of just home cooking, can a man not cook himself?
@@toolbaggers if I had to choose between US Garbage Corporate Food "aka professional" and Mumbai's lady (or gent) chefs at home, I know which one I would pick every single day.
It was proven by three British men, that it is far more efficient to use UK-made cars to drive them through the city and deliver them that way, instead of putting them on the train.
Imagine having a reliable train system capable of delivering your lunch to you in from anywhere in your city to a station in biking distance of your workplace and it taking an hour max. This comment was made by the having-chronically-underfunded-pulbic-transit-gang.
And yet the only thing that is ever said and heard about the Mumbai Suburban Railway is that it is "overcrowded." Whenever it comes to India, folks tend to always dwell on the negatives rather than the positives.
I think that's why there's so many racist comments. It's actually jealousy in part but they are ashamed when a "third world country" does something better
It rather reminds me (aside from the decentralised ownership) of the British mail system-back when it worked. They took it a couple of steps further, though: the trains _did not stop_ when loading and unloading mail from small stations, and some of the sorting took place _on the train._ Oh, and there was a dedicated metro system under London. I don't know how many people used it to deliver lunch, but it was the right shape of infrastructure, even though it did not benefit from persistence of individual connections. I think we stopped caring.
I don't understand how the food delivery system works in the US, because in my country, motorbikes can drive between cars, which means they get to places much faster, in addition to having a much lower operating cost, a 100cc motorcycle can easily do more than 100mpg, which means that for me anything I order within a 10km radius of my house shipping costs less than $5 and arrives within 20 minutes, and I live in a city with over 10 million inhabitants, a lot of traffic. In the US, deliveries are made by car, as motorbikes are not worth the inconvenience, so either the delivery cost is absurdly high, or the driver must transport a large quantity, which is extremely complex logistics and also means that if your home is not on the route of any delivery person, your order will never be delivered.
We have a lot of car based infrastructure but mostly for moving them between places white people live and work, because we had a much worse racism problem before when we built the highways.
In the US, it's illegal to drive motorbikes between cars, except in California, so you're subject to the same traffic as the cars. Some cities have bike lanes, but not all. Add that a lot of these delivery drivers are effectively freelance employees working whenever and are largely required to follow GPS generated routes to multiple destinations scattered across a a city because the delivery company is too cheap to bother improving actual logistics and you end up with the ridiculousness of stuff like Door Dash. Meanwhile, restaurants with their own in-house delivery service (usually pizza places) are often much faster, charge less for delivery, are more efficient, and can get your food to you while it's still piping hot (or still chilled if relevant). Dedicated delivery employees and proper routing and logistics do wonders and is why a number of them were able to run "your order delivered in 30 minutes or its free" promotions successfully. So efficient delivery is far from impossible here. It's just the 3rd party delivery services suck and get away with it because no other delivery alternatives exist for those restaurants.
I wish we had that here, I live in a town which is next to a city and absolutely no food delivery systems bring stuff here, despite the train line to the city. The city gets to get delivered a ton of stuff. This is genuinely so cool we need to have better food delivery systems
@@freedomofspeech2867 because the workers aren't preparing food, it's someone from their family who does, and if the worker wants to take the food with himself he would have to wake up way too early or even if someone else is preparing they will have to wake up very early
@@freedomofspeech2867In India most of us live with our families. So in an average family, The person who is the breadwinner has to leave early for work due to long travel times and crowds in Mumbai. If the person is a male, it's usually their wives or mothers who prepare meals a bit after they wake up. By this time the breadwinner has already left for work. And it's just our culture that if one person is contributing to the household expenses, other adults in the families they want to help out in any way they can. The genders can be reversed for exceptional cases btw, I'm just talking in averages.
@@freedomofspeech2867 Im guessing its for 2 reasons, People may leave for work early in the morning, lets say 8:00 am, and the lunch wud be around 5-6 hrs later, making the food not as hot or fresh. It would also probably reduce the burden on the person cooking at home, so as to not need to cook extra stuff early in the morning 6 hours in advance.
I can't hear Sam's pronunciation of Mumbai and dabbawala 🤦 Sam you are amazing, as you changed calling Iran and iraq as i-ran and i-rack. You can learn this. Mumbai -- it is not Mum it is Moom (not exactly but give it a try) Moom Baai. Dabbawala is not Daba wala. Duh bha waala. Just listen to an Indian news channel sometime on this. Amy, Ben and Adam please 🥺
I'd say a nice middle ground between delivery apps and this is the system in multiple european countries: A restarant has a daily menu with a limited selection (something like two soups, three meals) each workday, usually shown for the whole week on monday. A person can either call each morning to order what they'd like, or order for the entire week in advance. The restaurant then uses their own employee and delivery car/van to hand out tens/hundreds of lunches on a route. This way the delivery fee is usually either very low or there is none at all.
I feel like this leaves out the elephant on the Mumbai subway that is systemically low wages. Like, yeah lots of the facts mentioned in the video are important too... but leaving out "really low average wages mean you can employ lots of people for next to nothing to do this" kinda feels like a major oversight. This is why live in servants are also cheap in Mumbai, etc.
@@alexschmidt6644 The reason they don't has already been answered multiple times here haha. Most families have one parent at least who needs to go to work early, by when the food isn't cooked (as they need to leave in time for the morning commute in rush hour, which can take long; Mumbai is huuge and very crowded after all). Plus, home cooked meals are the cultural preference here, compared to take-out or restaurant food, for the vast majority. Also, the food is hot and freshly made, so why not? xD
@@alexschmidt6644 I don't get how anyone can come to the conclusion that everybody preparing a single meal for themselves every time could ever be described as efficient, never mind the 4 hour gap between preparation and consumption. Door dash style systems suck, because they have so much logistical overhead from stops being far apart. When you can reduce that overhead substantially by delivering to a large portion of the population (3% has been thrown around, which would mean a single 1000 worker building would need 30 meals) then the logistical overhead ends up being quite small. The key factor is stop density (and that they are all in the same time window). Once that goes above a certain threshold the inefficiencies from transport drop below the inefficiencies from individual preparation.
Mumbai commute is very crowded during rush hours (in the morning and evening)....So office workers prefer to carry as less luggage as possible....Dabbawalas usually don't travel during rush hours so its easy for them to take the tiffins back....
1:50 "Wala" is anyone who does something or is associated with something so the translation of "Dabbawala" is just "guy who delivers dabbas (containers)"
no shareholders pushing to maximize profits and leech the money out of the system. instead its judged by how well it works and how satisfied the customers are. how strange that its so efficient!
@@kitsunekaze93 It works because it's consistent, unvaried everyday, there's tons of logistics companies with shareholders, trying to squeeze every penny, doing this exact same thing, for products you don't care about, you don't hear about them because they're decent back end and fine, the timber company who sends their mulch from sawmill to factory isn't something you think about much, hell, this is Amazon on easy mode
My why question isn't why they send it, its a home cooked meal by a loved one, but why do they have to logistically send it back, why not just bring the container with you on your way home?
Travelling is a pain in Mumbai, let alone with excess baggage. Also, conventionally, such lunch carriers offer a two way service wherever they operate in India
@@toolbaggers Arabia and England are more similar than India is to Arabia. England and Arabic cultures both are Abrahamic cultures and partook in African slavery, intolerant to other beliefs, have bland food and have light skin. While India is Dharmic not Abrahamic, has thousands of languages and beliefs, never had massive slave trades, has numerous flavorful cuisines and have light to dark to yellow skin tones.
I really question that 99.9999 percent accuracy rate. I'm sure it's high, but accidents must happen far more often than that and far all kinds of reasons. The delivery man getting sick, having an accident, the building being closed for one reason or another etc.
I mean.. I have like a 95% success rate at showing up to work at all. If they can cover for me 19 out of 20 times that brings it up to 99.75%. Pretty good. But nowhere near 99.9999 My guess is that mistakes go unreported
@@timonix2nope they don’t , leaving a person hungry because of your negligence is something that’s taken very seriously in a culture where food is considered sacred
@@venkatakhileshyanamadala1700 Food being sacred doesn't really help in delivering it if the delivery man get hit by a car and spill the food all over the street.
6:59 No, the Dabbawallas are capitalism too. Just, small-scale, low-enough-tech, very local capitalism, the kind of capitalism that works best. Big (tech) companies look more like central (and private) planning, whereas Dabbawallas are emergent and agile market agents.
0:49 - Not to nitpick on a word but I wouldn't go so far as to calling them illiterate. It's contradicted in your own video to some extent as they 'read' and 'write' things on the top of the containers. I could once accept if you claim they haven't had a modern education, but they are literate.
@@Inalis_Ps Fair point, although, I was trying to find studies relating to literacy rates and wasn't able to find numbers or sources that say or help support the predominance of illiteracy. I was able to find a study "Literacy Practices of The Mumbai Dabbawalas, India Writing an Ethnographic Case Study by Uma Krishnan (Author)" that emphasizes that they are literate but have limited formal education. So while I cannot support the fact that majority are literate factually, I'd be curious to know the source for supporting the argument for predominance in illiteracy.
I may be wrong, and forgive my ignorance, but...isn't this whole system based on the idea that there is someone at home preparing the meal? And isn't the point of food delivery in the U.S. to avoid both cooking _and_ having to physically go get takeout yourself? I just don't see how they're comparable. If I have the time/motivation to cook (hint, I don't) then it's very little additional effort to bring some to work and keep it in the office fridge until lunch time. What's the difference between leftovers from last night and something that was made like 4 hours ago?
sn't this whole system based on the idea that there is someone at home preparing the meal? - Absolutely. Your wife/mother/paid cook is cooking for you. Most Indian women are house-wifes. Also, many offices in India don't have a fridge/microwave.
This is not a one-one comparison. It is a more holistic comparison were you can take the positives of one system and implement it in another but it requires some thought, not a copy-paste approach. For example, if USA puts an efficient and secure public transit system in place and the food delivery (and even courier) companies build a logistics system around that, it could drive up efficiency. And if you can think beyond that, this is a statement about the importance of community and family in a society.
People leave early in the morning, typically at 8 or earlier for a normal 9 to 5, and lunch isn't ready at 8 normally for them to take away. Thus, they leave for work, their wife prepares lunch at home by 10 or 11, and then the dabba guy takes and delivers it around lunchtime at 12:30, hope this helps!
Because it is healthier, which means less lifestyle diseases (like diabetes) in your population, which means a more productive population and less stress on the healthcare system. Overall, this is more efficient for the nation.
@@freedomofspeech2867 wrong. ive seen you reply on so many comments just saying "same" like a redditor and adding nothing of value. so once and for all, understand that the food is prepared by other households and kitchens that are a part of the system. the food they carry is often not from the house of the person theyre delivering to.
@@anonymoushoopla3694 Ok, if that's true then that settles it, interesting. If it's from their own home like HAI says then I'd still find that dumb. If I didn't answer to so many people I probably wouldn't have gotten your answer, that is why I replied to so many people :)
@@freedomofspeech2867 ill try to give you the reason which is closer to the real one. 1. Mumbai is expensive af for an avg indian. Many bachelors live here in shared flats without their families. They dont have the luxury to buy a full fledged kitchen and neither the time to cook food early in the morning, as indian food is made on the spot and dosent use premade refridgerated bread, veggies. You need to first roll chapatis (common staple bread in mumbai), heat them on a pan, then prepare a bhaji (cooked vegetables). This takes 30 mins to 1 hour. 2. now you would think 45 mins avg is not a lot of time. But people need to reach their offices at 6-7-8 and even with trains it takes 30 mins to an hour to reach office. One dosent want to tire themself early in the morning. And if we compare the costs, overall the "dabbas" are cheaper then buying and cooking it yourself. 3. You dont have to handle the washing and cleaning of utensils used to make and transport the food. 4. The food is homemade, generally by women who are illiterate and cant do other jobs, this acts as a way of sustenance for them. OR some dabbas are even made by family members who just use the dabbawala system to transport it. 1
I love that so many people saw the title and immediately remembered they’d seen it on Top Gear 😂 “I know they’re not many, but they’re much hotter than usual!” 😂😂😂😂
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
And this 0.0001% rate is only because of that one time the top gear crew came around
the one reason i knew about this before this video
What happened i didn't see this episode
Can someone do the maths because this might genuinely be true
@@BRAZILIAN_MIKU They took some lunches by car. Through a congested city they were unfamiliar with. And they exercised their usual amount of conscientiousness.
@@BRAZILIAN_MIKU Topgear Uk, Season 17 episode 7
the 0.00001% of non-accuracy was when the top gear trio tried delivering the food with cars for an episode and miserable failed
beat me to it.
The Top Gear special from 2011 said the accuracy before they went was 99.9996%. So it's actually gone up by 0.0003% in the last 13 years!
7:03 is the same girl from the Distracted Boyfriend memes!
The advantages of no worker laws hassles. You pay someone for a job they do the job
The top gear guys rarely if ever succeeded at anything.
I love that someone decided to make stock footage of water aggressively being dumped on a slice of sandwich bread
I'm like 80% sure they got Amy to record that.
@@BackflipBrickfilms The 20% saying it's stock footage?
I like to believe that 20%
They just filmed a British person making dinner wym
@@StrayPixelShorts Amy recorded that *and then* freely uploaded it as stock footage
@@BackflipBrickfilms Probs right lol
Tonight on Half as Interesting, Sam reads words, Ben writes words, and half the comments section is Top Gear references
"Intro theme plays"
*"HAMMOOOOOOND!!!"*
"CLARKSOOOOOOOONNNNNNN"
There's just something so unifying to me about seeing so many other people sharing the same brain cell and remembering that Top Gear episode the moment they see this video.
😂😂😂
You nailed it
Effeciency is so high that theres a whole movie with the plotline being based around a delivery being mixed up repeatedly which ended up turning into a pen pal situation and then an affair
I can't stop laughing at this 😂
sounds about as ridiculous as the plot to 50 first dates but americans watched the shit out of that... with over a billion indians the lowest common denominator must be pretty lucrative!
Yeah, Its "The Lunchbox" starring Irrfan Khan...
@@shabadvaswani5576 great movie starring the greatest actor
GOAted comment
Its logistical brilliance how they do this...
My grandpa used to work in Mumbai for a govt job, his office was abt 5-6km from his quarters,yet everyday at 1PM his tiffin (dabba) always used to be on the table. He took me, when I was little, to see how dabbawalas worked-- at Churchgate station
Indian Wall street too upscale to pack a homemade sandwich to work but too poor to afford take out food for lunch.
Nah people leave for work early because of the traffic and stringent time these offices follow....and people here prefer homemade food over anything elese@@toolbaggers
@@toolbaggers You misunderstand. This food is prepared fresh in the morning, and is not just a sandwich. You can't exactly cook food at 6 in the morning.
@@gnanasabaapatirg7376so you wake up early enough to make the lunch and put it on your porch for the driver to get but too late to put that same can in your briefcase?
@@Owen-il8ws They probably have wifes or someone else who cooks for them
Hahaha I'm Indian and I'm not from Mumbai. I've lived there a couple of years and always wondered what the racks that held lunch boxes outside office buildings were. Just so you know, this is a uniquely Mumbai system - right from the efficiency to trust to the steadfastedness...
....to the laziness of not bringing your own food to work in the morning.
@@toolbaggers bro why are you so pressed about this you're replying to every single comment lmfao RELAX
@@toolbaggers, I think there was a reason they didn’t bring it to you in particular
@@spiralshadow Racism is a hell of a drug
dang im sorry bro. I feel bad for you. But hey, maybe you will be reincarnated as something else in another life 🤣
Indians studied that 100 percent efficiency was ideal, not realistic
So, they decided to make a 99.9999% efficient system
how lazy smh
Top Gear was the .0001%
I mean u could say it for anything really especially the chances for England to lose the euros again 😂
Hey US Police!
Learn from this and you MIGHT stop getting bad press for destroying the wrong address and killing people whose only crime is YOUR mistake.
@@MonkeyJedi99what
A pokey little motoring show on the BBC showed that clearly using British cars is superior because you can arrive 45 seconds earlier with only 80% or more broken
😭
"pokey little motoring show on the BBC" I'm dead
7:03 is the same girl from the Distracted Boyfriend memes!
Imagine not doing that challenge with a German car... A Mercedes-Benz W140.
Yes but much hotter than before
0.0001% is the base for the film The Lunchbox.
Where lunch box of 2 people gets mixed up.
And a series of conversation and romance start sprouting.
hahaha peak cinema, highly recommend everyone to watch it
Last time, a Dabba wala delivered two boxes late, the person went hungry. Inefficiency came in , And India’s GDP tanked by 0.02%. The government had to intervene and set up a meeting of Cabinet Council for security to check if it was China’s plan.
cap no way this is real
Three middle aged British men tried to improve on the last 0.0004% (back then it was only 99.9996% accurate), and they failed miserably.
top gear?
Clarksooooon
@@rudragupta2491HAMMOND!
British trying to improve efficiency? Sounds oxymoronic
Don't tell him about 10 minute delivery apps in India.
Or how a dollar is worth ≈85 rupees@TheDarkXanatos
zomato > swiggy
@TheDarkXanatoswhat… what are those things?
Now I know what aliens are gonna feel like when they first come to earth
PLS TELL THEM THEIR MINDS WILL BE BLOWN
@@whyamiwastingmytimeonthis UPI is a payment method like cash app or paypal but is open source and free to use created by govt of india, so basically people in cities and towns have stopped paying with cash and rather shops have QR codes you can scan to pay, even roadside street vendors have them and if you have a credit card, you can setup auto pay through UPI for bill payments. So it's a very versatile product that can be even used without internet and has been made voice enabled to improve accessibility
This basically sounds like packet routing, which is awesome. An Internet of meals.
moving bytes 🍛
Just gotta swap out our fiber optics for desperate unskilled laborers
@@Papa-Murphy🤓
It's exactly that
genius analogy. It's literally an internet made up of smaller networks of dabbawalas. It's beautiful how trust can increase efficiency so much.
Hey, I am from mumbai and I used this service for about 3 months ish when I was working in a different part of the city and I can confirm, these guys kick ass
Do you not have a microwave in your office?
Hey, I have a question, did you make the lunch tourself in the morning, or did you order it from a restaurant?
@@NGCAnderopolis It's probably done by the wife
@@aishikpanja3931 I wasn't making breakfast in the morning, you think I was gonna make lunch? There's a lot of women who run tiffin service out of their homes, you can have them cook you nice food, these dabba walls will bring it to you
@@YashAtishaythis seems like an important point. Getting food from elsewhere definitely adds to the usefulness of the service.
Also lots of people are saying the food actually gets picked up much closer to lunch than the “9:30am” quoted in this video. Would you agree? Seems like a 9:30-12:30 transit time would leave the food pretty cold.
For all those saying why dont they take theur own tiffins
1) only about 3% of the population uses the service so clearly most of the people do take thier lunch with them.
2) for the people whose offices are far and who travel for an hour or two, might not have their lunch ready by the time they leave. It is easier for the family to prepare the lunch in their own time and then let dabbawalas take it.
3) A lot of bachlors are dependent on this service since their lunch comes from a cloud kitchen of sorts and hence they don't have to worry about preparing lunches. It just makes lives a little but more convenient.
Edit- I believe central kitchen will be a more appropriate term here. It is a large kitchen in a building preparing meals for lots of people and sending it out through dabbawalas
Cloud kitchen?? What is this? I am extremely curious now!
@@simplystreeptacular "Cloud Kitchen" aka "Ghost Kitchen"
@@simplystreeptacularit’s another term for ghost kitchen. A ghost kitchen is a restaurant that only offers takeout or delivery and can be in some cheap building or even just inside another restaurant. Sometimes the food is so good people will pay for it and don’t care for the restaurant that’s why some places operate only as kitchens as it’s cheaper.
@@realjoshuaW so Chinese take-away but instead Indian delivery-only
Thanks, I was just about to ask why the workers don't simply take their lunch to work with them. as an american bachelor, I forget that in other cultures people have family at home that prepare meals for them
Half as interesting is slowly turning into full as interesting
Still only half as long.
I expected a Wendower case study on the highly efficient logistics of the Mumbai Dabbawala, but got a "funny" video from his Alabamam cousin
"funny"
7:03 is the same girl from the Distracted Boyfriend memes!
@@B3Band YES I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE
you do know it's the same guy, tho...its the worst-kept secret since cleopatra's infidelity
@@TheGrimStoiclmao
Such a great top gear segment with this
POOOOOWER!!!!!!!!
@@a_lol_cat "you blithering idiot"
Being from Mumbai it gives me immense pride that HAI made a video about Mumbai's Dabbawalas.
Fun fact: dabbawalas have attended the Royal Wedding in 2005 and also had breakfast with Queen Elizabeth in her Palace
Using the railway system as a backbone of the service seems like something that western "urbanists" would absolutely adore and consider a revolutionary idea.
It has to be “pod” instead of train to get western urban planning interest.
@@dashmeetsingh9679More like to avoid having to deal with the bullshit our privatized railroads put us through.
Sounds like some people don’t have functional train infrastructure where they live. We don’t use it for food delivery though.
Positively "groundbreaking".
@@doomsdayrabbit4398privatized rail can work out well if done right. See: Japan
I am from Mumbai and I even recognized the plastic carry bag worn by the dabbawala at 5:41
It is from D. Damodar Mithaiwala, which is a very old and renowned sweet shop.
Never thought I had see something so close to my home on a HAI video!
I don't think you can compare this to food delivery apps considering this system seems to be for actual sustenance and not just spur of the moment desire purchases.
Great video, but as a Mumbaikar, couldn't stop laughing at "Ville Parle". On the face of it, that pronunciation would make perfect sense to an English speaker based on the spelling, but we pronounce it "Vil-ey Par-lay" (rhyming)
as well as "hanUUUman" 3:07
(its pronounced han-u-man)
Yeah. He pronouced it like WILL PAARL.
"and wala being, guy, i guess". oh how to explain the many uses and meanings of that word.
i couldnt get over how he pronounced dabbawala LOL
Bro I swear it's a great video, but that suburban railway network map just triggers me every time it shows up on screen. It's so wildly wrong.
"why don't they just carry their lunch"
Why don't you just Google?
1. Ppl hardly prepare their lunches at 7 in the morning
2. Saves on the space and rush of having to prepare and carry the food with you to lunch
3. You get a hot home cooked meal instead of having to reheat something or eat it cold
4. The dabbawala system is deeply rooted in Mumbai's culture and tradition. It not only provides a practical service but also fosters a sense of community among workers and dabbawalas.
Indian Wall street too upscale to pack a homemade sandwich to work but too poor to afford take out food for lunch.
Imagine if 300,000 workers had a more productive job....there wouldn't be a mega slum in Mumbai!
@@toolbaggers Imagine if you had a more productive job - you might do something with your life instead of being racist on RUclips comments
Having no personal experience with this, I followed your advice and "just Google[d]".
1. The time you have to go to work has no bearing on this. My ex used to start work at 4 in the morning and would still make herself lunch every day before she went. I start work at 8 in the morning, so guess what I do at 7? Just stop being lazy, wake up earlier, and do it. It isn't that hard.
2. See previous, re: laziness.
3. According to a journal article about the schedule of a dabbawala (which lines up pretty well with what is stated in the video here), the food is collected from 8:30 to 10 in the morning. So it must be prepared before that, meaning it is being prepared roughly the same time as it would be if it were just being carried. Maybe it is a half hour to an hour fresher...which is meaningless a few hours later at lunch time. The food will have the same properties in regard to how cold it is unless the dabbawalas are transporting them under heat lamps (which clearly seems to not be the case).
4. This is the only real reason. It doesn't really make logical sense to do this, but it is tradition. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to continue this tradition, but trying to argue that this system is logistically beneficial just falls flat on its face.
Even the low error provided at the start of the video trying to make this system seem virtually perfect seems to be based on some guesstimates with zero support. It was derived from a vague statement made by one man that the dabbawalas make mistakes "almost never, maybe once every two months."
The lunches are collected by 9:30. They're still going to sit for hours before delivery.
In Bangla (pretty closely related), "wala" basically means "one who has," so I'm guessing dabbawala means the one who has the container
Would lunchbox-bearer be a fair interpretation?
It's more like the guy. Chai wala, bread wala.
@Dr.Quarex Loan words are amazing.
'Man/person' is actually a fairly accurate descriptor but more in the profession sort of sense. Like the 'man' in 'fisherman' or 'salesman'.
I wouldn't say it's "one who has" exactly. It works for vendors like "chaiwala" or "maachwala" for example, but it's also used in terms of things like "stationwala" meaning station worker or stationman where "one who has" doesn't quite make sense.
Wala means the same in all Indian languages.
I'm an Indian! Nice to see you cover this!
(I remember first watching your videos when I was 14! Been a long time since I came back to your channel! I'm 21 now!)
Ok.
Who asked about your age and how long you've been watching this channel?
Yawn.. somehow you make his about yourself. Get a life bro.
The replies are being too rude. Just move on if you don't care.
Just the fact that suburban passenger trains have goods compartments is cool, I wonder how common that is worldwide
not common at all.
It used to be very common, but these days now that bikes can be carried inside the passenger areas of the train they seem to have been dropped.
I've been a subscriber of this channel for a year now and I also stay in Mumbai. Having seen many case studies on dabbawalas all these years, I can say half as interesting has done a fantastic job in making this case study interesting with his sarcasm as well as with the data viz skills. Amazing job bro! The apartment where i stay, has 5-6 houses relying on dabbawalas for their tiffin deliveries and these guys are interestingly efficient in their supply chain.
I often see Dabbawalas outside the station during my commute, and I remember one time when they all had brought a cake and were celebrating someone’s birthday. So wholesome!
Also, I wish Mumbai’s rail network was as extensive as shown here. It’s only 3 lines, all going from south to north.
One day by top gear raised the error percentage from 0,0001% to 0,001% erasing the whole zero from the equation.
One more thing , daba-walas often time are some of the first responders at accidents if some thing severe happens call the police and ambulance even some have first aid kits with them , semi-police ( if someone fights with someone try to mitigate that , if some crime happens they are the first informants to police , some daba-wala even have walkie talkies uf they are the main person at certain stations who manages the supervision duty , someone gets into accudent at station they will switch the frequency and call the railway police and normal police too . In india we have more types of police like forest police ( they are different than forest rangers ) , military police , railway police , special zone police ( dockyards police they are different from customs officers ) than there are coast police ( they are more life government appointed coast gaurds who investigate and are first responders when something happens very near to coasts and shores they are different from military coast gaurds but are first line of protection for civilians ) . So good luck understanding india 😂😂😂 .
that's great! It's rare in big cities for people to look out for each other.
That's interesting.
De facto community patrol, basically.
Bro I am indian, and everyday I fail at understanding india
"wet bread or whatever British people eat" lmaooo
Water sandwich
Welsh Rarebit 😂
So, did he do that himself, or is there an actual market out there for 'stock footage of a slice of white bread getting dissolved by a garden hose'?
@@Eloraurora part of me thinks they find the stock footage before they write the jokes lol
@@Eloraurora Maybe it goes the other way around. Sam goes out and finds absurd stock photos and videos, and then tries to determine subject for a video that fits the findings 😂
This method of distributing work reminds me about how Sociocracy works. I work for an organization that uses a similar method to make decisions and manage projects. It is a great way to self organize small groups that more people should known.
The network diagram at 0:37 is what Mumbai suburban + metro network will look like in around 5-7 years. A few of those lines are under construction now. The diagram is also missing some existing lines in the far north, east and south sections.
This is ridiculous impressive. I’d definitely love to see a long form video on this
Why don’t workers just carry their own lunch with them to work?
Hot lunches
maybe the food wasn't prepared that early in the morning? 🤷
So that the 'dabbawalas' can keep their jobs.
Given only 2.5% of the city's population use the service, it's safe to assume the vast majority of them do.
Or at least take the empty box back home.
Whoa I was not expecting a HAI / Wendover video about India! So nice to see this! Greetings from Mumbai, Sam!
I feel like we should have mentioned who makes the food. It's coming "from home", but no acknowledgement of the wives, daughters, sisters, etc who are making and packaging this food in time for it to be picked up and delivered.
I see these guys everyday and trust me these are hard working and good people. Whoever lived or been to mumbai knows how Mumbai's climate is I've seen these people working hard in extreme heat and rainfall. Huge respect for these guys ❤❤❤.
So I'm confused, who is making the meals? It seems they are being delivered from homes, not restaurants. Are people making their meals in the morning and then having them delivered to their workplace in the afternoon?
Its made by someone in their family.....wife, mom or hired cook....
India still has "traditional family values". If a man makes a salary good enough to employ the dabbawallas you can bet your arse his wife will take pride in making sure he gets a hot meal, worthy of his status, every single day unless she's so sick she can't stand up.
There’s also lot of women who run dabba services so they just pick it up from them.
@vishalmalik0519 It was a genuine question I asked out of curiosity. Seems we have some cultural differences, as many adults here are responsible for their own lunches and don't expect their family to fulfill that duty. Except for more socially conservative regions of the United States where men expect their spouse to prepare a packed lunch.
@@kylewolfe_ ignore that person, ill try to give you the reason which is closer to the real one.
1. Mumbai is expensive af for an avg indian. Many bachelors live here in shared flats without their families. They dont have the luxury to buy a full fledged kitchen and neither the time to cook food early in the morning, as indian food is made on the spot and dosent use premade refridgerated bread, veggies. You need to first roll chapatis (common staple bread in mumbai), heat them on a pan, then prepare a bhaji (cooked vegetables). This takes 30 mins to 1 hour.
2. now you would think 45 mins avg is not a lot of time. But people need to reach their offices at 6-7-8 and even with trains it takes 30 mins to an hour to reach office. One dosent want to tire themself early in the morning. And if we compare the costs, overall the "dabbas" are cheaper then buying and cooking it yourself.
3. You dont have to handle the washing and cleaning of utensils used to make and transport the food.
4. The food is homemade, generally by women who are illiterate and cant do other jobs, this acts as a way of sustenance for them. OR some dabbas are even made by family members who just use the dabbawala system to transport it.
7:03 is the same girl from the Distracted Boyfriend memes!
Huge Respect For Mumbai Dabbawala's.
Okay okaaay, I mean I wasn't *gonna* , but I'm gonna order food now, to verify the service in my city isn't as decent. Everything for science, amirite?
But you will get professionally cooked restaurant food delivered. Unlike these office workers that won't bring their wife's/mom's home cooking to work with them in the morning.
@@toolbaggers you're so mad people are eating homemade, fresh food & supporting basic jobs in their community, must be real toxic wherever you are from
@@toolbaggers Buddy is so angry, he replying to every comment about how they don't bring food from home, also why do u say wife's/mom's home cooking instead of just home cooking, can a man not cook himself?
Oh this commenter really is just leaving borderline racist comments under any positive comment wow
@@toolbaggers if I had to choose between US Garbage Corporate Food "aka professional" and Mumbai's lady (or gent) chefs at home, I know which one I would pick every single day.
5:19 Jokes on you... I live in Mumbai 🗿🗿🗿
6:41 a wild Andy Lee appears!
must be nice
I was also very confused when he showed up!
@@CarsMutley1995 Must be veeeeeery nice
Was not expecting random Andy Lee on a bike here
The weaver! Surprised they got a photo of him without a ciggy in his mouth
Damn Mumbai video is Here😭😭😭😭. I have been waiting for it as a Mumbaikar
The way says “ Dabbawalas” is hilarious 😂😂
It was proven by three British men, that it is far more efficient to use UK-made cars to drive them through the city and deliver them that way, instead of putting them on the train.
Was gonna say the 0.0001% error was down to 3 British men
Are you referring to Top Gear series 18 where that actually happened.
But if all dabawalas used cars the traffic would be impossible
proven where?
cars need fuel tho? have u not factored that in?
Imagine having a reliable train system capable of delivering your lunch to you in from anywhere in your city to a station in biking distance of your workplace and it taking an hour max.
This comment was made by the having-chronically-underfunded-pulbic-transit-gang.
And yet the only thing that is ever said and heard about the Mumbai Suburban Railway is that it is "overcrowded." Whenever it comes to India, folks tend to always dwell on the negatives rather than the positives.
I think that's why there's so many racist comments. It's actually jealousy in part but they are ashamed when a "third world country" does something better
I'm disappointed that at 1:03, you didnt say 'lets taco bout it'
this title should be: The INSANE logistics of Mumbai Doordash by Wendhover production 😂
This is genuinely one of the coolest things I've ever heard of that I never knew existed until now. Thanks for sharing!
It rather reminds me (aside from the decentralised ownership) of the British mail system-back when it worked. They took it a couple of steps further, though: the trains _did not stop_ when loading and unloading mail from small stations, and some of the sorting took place _on the train._ Oh, and there was a dedicated metro system under London.
I don't know how many people used it to deliver lunch, but it was the right shape of infrastructure, even though it did not benefit from persistence of individual connections.
I think we stopped caring.
Fun fact: you can like comments by double tapping them and by tripple tapping them you can reply to that comment 😱
Bullshit
This comment summarizes quite well every single comment on RUclips right now
@@mrstudent9125except no
Fun fact: life is better without RUclips comments, just generally.
Tried it, then unliked the comment
You've got a knack for this, loving your content!
I don't understand how the food delivery system works in the US, because in my country, motorbikes can drive between cars, which means they get to places much faster, in addition to having a much lower operating cost, a 100cc motorcycle can easily do more than 100mpg, which means that for me anything I order within a 10km radius of my house shipping costs less than $5 and arrives within 20 minutes, and I live in a city with over 10 million inhabitants, a lot of traffic.
In the US, deliveries are made by car, as motorbikes are not worth the inconvenience, so either the delivery cost is absurdly high, or the driver must transport a large quantity, which is extremely complex logistics and also means that if your home is not on the route of any delivery person, your order will never be delivered.
They have cheap blood oil/petroleum as a byproduct of spreading freedom.
We have a lot of car based infrastructure but mostly for moving them between places white people live and work, because we had a much worse racism problem before when we built the highways.
In the US, it's illegal to drive motorbikes between cars, except in California, so you're subject to the same traffic as the cars. Some cities have bike lanes, but not all. Add that a lot of these delivery drivers are effectively freelance employees working whenever and are largely required to follow GPS generated routes to multiple destinations scattered across a a city because the delivery company is too cheap to bother improving actual logistics and you end up with the ridiculousness of stuff like Door Dash.
Meanwhile, restaurants with their own in-house delivery service (usually pizza places) are often much faster, charge less for delivery, are more efficient, and can get your food to you while it's still piping hot (or still chilled if relevant). Dedicated delivery employees and proper routing and logistics do wonders and is why a number of them were able to run "your order delivered in 30 minutes or its free" promotions successfully.
So efficient delivery is far from impossible here. It's just the 3rd party delivery services suck and get away with it because no other delivery alternatives exist for those restaurants.
@@doomsdayrabbit4398 I’m pretty sure non white people use roads too
I wish we had that here, I live in a town which is next to a city and absolutely no food delivery systems bring stuff here, despite the train line to the city. The city gets to get delivered a ton of stuff. This is genuinely so cool we need to have better food delivery systems
Sometimes you forget just how much of a reach 3 blokes and a pokey British motoring show had... Glad to see you all, my fellow people of culture ❤️
Food delivery apps in Mumbai are also top tier. It's not just offline
Mumbai: hand deliver 300,000 lunches per day with superb accuracy for the last 130 years. Random guy on youtube: That system sucks.
Why don't the workers just bring their food to work themselves when they, go to work?
@@freedomofspeech2867 because the workers aren't preparing food, it's someone from their family who does, and if the worker wants to take the food with himself he would have to wake up way too early or even if someone else is preparing they will have to wake up very early
@@freedomofspeech2867In India most of us live with our families. So in an average family, The person who is the breadwinner has to leave early for work due to long travel times and crowds in Mumbai. If the person is a male, it's usually their wives or mothers who prepare meals a bit after they wake up. By this time the breadwinner has already left for work. And it's just our culture that if one person is contributing to the household expenses, other adults in the families they want to help out in any way they can.
The genders can be reversed for exceptional cases btw, I'm just talking in averages.
I wanna hear Ben read some of his scripts sometime. They already have so much of his voice in them.
Make it better. *Drunk* Ben reads them.
A key ingredient to making it all work is the way the city and the local train work together.
0:42 30 mistakes out of 300,000 is a pretty good success rate, one america could only dream of
I have lived in mumbai all my life but never knew how this worked. Thanks!
Why don't the workers just bring their food to work themselves when they, go to work?
@@freedomofspeech2867 Im guessing its for 2 reasons,
People may leave for work early in the morning, lets say 8:00 am, and the lunch wud be around 5-6 hrs later, making the food not as hot or fresh.
It would also probably reduce the burden on the person cooking at home, so as to not need to cook extra stuff early in the morning 6 hours in advance.
This takes the "we have food at home" meme to another level.
I can't hear Sam's pronunciation of Mumbai and dabbawala 🤦
Sam you are amazing, as you changed calling Iran and iraq as i-ran and i-rack. You can learn this.
Mumbai -- it is not Mum it is Moom (not exactly but give it a try) Moom Baai.
Dabbawala is not Daba wala. Duh bha waala. Just listen to an Indian news channel sometime on this.
Amy, Ben and Adam please 🥺
Marathi mein dabba ko dabbha pronounce karte hain?
@@Chopper153 nope, pronounced डब्बा
I still call it Bombay.
Seriously, I don't understand the mispronunciation of 'Dabbawala'.. why say it like 'Daba' when there are clearly 2 Bs?
At least its better than his pronunciation of Ville Parle 😅
I'd say a nice middle ground between delivery apps and this is the system in multiple european countries: A restarant has a daily menu with a limited selection (something like two soups, three meals) each workday, usually shown for the whole week on monday. A person can either call each morning to order what they'd like, or order for the entire week in advance. The restaurant then uses their own employee and delivery car/van to hand out tens/hundreds of lunches on a route. This way the delivery fee is usually either very low or there is none at all.
It’s pretty cool how the cans can clip together into stacks for more efficient service.
I feel like this leaves out the elephant on the Mumbai subway that is systemically low wages. Like, yeah lots of the facts mentioned in the video are important too... but leaving out "really low average wages mean you can employ lots of people for next to nothing to do this" kinda feels like a major oversight.
This is why live in servants are also cheap in Mumbai, etc.
Dude they put elephants on the subway?
Also the fact that no matter how efficient the system is it would be vastly more efficient for everyone to just bring their lunch to work temselves
@@alexschmidt6644 The reason they don't has already been answered multiple times here haha. Most families have one parent at least who needs to go to work early, by when the food isn't cooked (as they need to leave in time for the morning commute in rush hour, which can take long; Mumbai is huuge and very crowded after all). Plus, home cooked meals are the cultural preference here, compared to take-out or restaurant food, for the vast majority. Also, the food is hot and freshly made, so why not? xD
@@karthikmukund9526 I get that there are reasons, but that doesn't change the fact the system is pretty inefficient all things considered
@@alexschmidt6644 I don't get how anyone can come to the conclusion that everybody preparing a single meal for themselves every time could ever be described as efficient, never mind the 4 hour gap between preparation and consumption. Door dash style systems suck, because they have so much logistical overhead from stops being far apart. When you can reduce that overhead substantially by delivering to a large portion of the population (3% has been thrown around, which would mean a single 1000 worker building would need 30 meals) then the logistical overhead ends up being quite small.
The key factor is stop density (and that they are all in the same time window). Once that goes above a certain threshold the inefficiencies from transport drop below the inefficiencies from individual preparation.
As a Mumbaiker I can guarantee you that this is true
Why are they doing it again in reverse? Can't the customer just take the box home after work?
Mumbai commute is very crowded during rush hours (in the morning and evening)....So office workers prefer to carry as less luggage as possible....Dabbawalas usually don't travel during rush hours so its easy for them to take the tiffins back....
the boxes are not theirs thats why
not all food comes from customers home. most come from independent women cooking food at home.
in my opinion you are one of the best channels in RUclips. Funny, informative interesting, and what else. love it
1:50 "Wala" is anyone who does something or is associated with something so the translation of "Dabbawala" is just "guy who delivers dabbas (containers)"
It works because there are no shareholders making money from other people eating
no shareholders pushing to maximize profits and leech the money out of the system. instead its judged by how well it works and how satisfied the customers are. how strange that its so efficient!
@@kitsunekaze93 It works because it's consistent, unvaried everyday, there's tons of logistics companies with shareholders, trying to squeeze every penny, doing this exact same thing, for products you don't care about, you don't hear about them because they're decent back end and fine, the timber company who sends their mulch from sawmill to factory isn't something you think about much, hell, this is Amazon on easy mode
My why question isn't why they send it, its a home cooked meal by a loved one, but why do they have to logistically send it back, why not just bring the container with you on your way home?
Travelling is a pain in Mumbai, let alone with excess baggage. Also, conventionally, such lunch carriers offer a two way service wherever they operate in India
Minor correction,(1:52) walas precisely mean person, not guy the reason is you don't use guy for person as for person for guy in Hindi
I'm sorry what?
Now that Sam is aware of the Mumbai's railway network, I am expecting a Jet Lag: मुंबई very soon.
It sounds like this system is really similar to how a lot of super accurate mail systems work (like the USPS).
What's with the Arabic music for a city in India, that too Maharasthra😑
That's like using Turkish Music for Scotland.
More like playing English music in Scotland.
@@toolbaggers Arabia and England are more similar than India is to Arabia.
England and Arabic cultures both are Abrahamic cultures and partook in African slavery, intolerant to other beliefs, have bland food and have light skin.
While India is Dharmic not Abrahamic, has thousands of languages and beliefs, never had massive slave trades, has numerous flavorful cuisines and have light to dark to yellow skin tones.
Boy do I have some information for you about the origins of the Mughal empire
@@simplystreeptacular The Mughals were Persianized Turks, so again, Arabic music doesn't play in here. And Mumbai wasn't part of the Mughal empire.
video is made by an american
I really question that 99.9999 percent accuracy rate. I'm sure it's high, but accidents must happen far more often than that and far all kinds of reasons. The delivery man getting sick, having an accident, the building being closed for one reason or another etc.
I mean.. I have like a 95% success rate at showing up to work at all. If they can cover for me 19 out of 20 times that brings it up to 99.75%. Pretty good. But nowhere near 99.9999
My guess is that mistakes go unreported
@@timonix2nope they don’t , leaving a person hungry because of your negligence is something that’s taken very seriously in a culture where food is considered sacred
@@timonix2 Sounds like you're a shitty employee
the rail system has to be even more efficient for these numbers to be true
@@venkatakhileshyanamadala1700 Food being sacred doesn't really help in delivering it if the delivery man get hit by a car and spill the food all over the street.
As a Mumbaikar, I can confirm that we rely on food delivery more than the Vada Pav, Pani Puri, and Samosa tapris.
This video is for all who still think one can't use the train to go shopping or deliver meals
When you pay workers less than a dollar per day, it's easy to have so much man power to complete these deliveries...
6:59 No, the Dabbawallas are capitalism too. Just, small-scale, low-enough-tech, very local capitalism, the kind of capitalism that works best. Big (tech) companies look more like central (and private) planning, whereas Dabbawallas are emergent and agile market agents.
I’d imagine they do something like this with newspaper delivery over there in Mumbai. Interesting!
0:49 - Not to nitpick on a word but I wouldn't go so far as to calling them illiterate. It's contradicted in your own video to some extent as they 'read' and 'write' things on the top of the containers. I could once accept if you claim they haven't had a modern education, but they are literate.
He didn't say that all of them were Illiterate, he said they were **Predominantly** Illiterate. Meaning, most of them can't read/write, but some can.
@@Inalis_Ps Fair point, although, I was trying to find studies relating to literacy rates and wasn't able to find numbers or sources that say or help support the predominance of illiteracy. I was able to find a study "Literacy Practices of The Mumbai Dabbawalas, India
Writing an Ethnographic Case Study by Uma Krishnan (Author)" that emphasizes that they are literate but have limited formal education. So while I cannot support the fact that majority are literate factually, I'd be curious to know the source for supporting the argument for predominance in illiteracy.
I have been wondering if this system was still working watched a documentary about it in the late 1980s and was amazed.
Waaaait.. Jet Lag India??!!!
Samuel, Benjamin, Adam-ezard.. you guys would hit your Nebula subscription targets by the first episode 🔥
I may be wrong, and forgive my ignorance, but...isn't this whole system based on the idea that there is someone at home preparing the meal? And isn't the point of food delivery in the U.S. to avoid both cooking _and_ having to physically go get takeout yourself? I just don't see how they're comparable. If I have the time/motivation to cook (hint, I don't) then it's very little additional effort to bring some to work and keep it in the office fridge until lunch time. What's the difference between leftovers from last night and something that was made like 4 hours ago?
If you put food in the office fridge, doesn't it go missing by the time lunch rolls around even if you sealed it and labelled it?
@@stylesrj hasn't been an issue where I work, thankfully. Now if only my neighbors at home would quit stealing shit off/out of my vehicles...
sn't this whole system based on the idea that there is someone at home preparing the meal? -
Absolutely. Your wife/mother/paid cook is cooking for you. Most Indian women are house-wifes. Also, many offices in India don't have a fridge/microwave.
food is prepared by other households not their own
This is not a one-one comparison. It is a more holistic comparison were you can take the positives of one system and implement it in another but it requires some thought, not a copy-paste approach. For example, if USA puts an efficient and secure public transit system in place and the food delivery (and even courier) companies build a logistics system around that, it could drive up efficiency.
And if you can think beyond that, this is a statement about the importance of community and family in a society.
I don't understand. Why would you pay someone to bring food from your own house to your work? Why not just bring it to work with you?
People leave early in the morning, typically at 8 or earlier for a normal 9 to 5, and lunch isn't ready at 8 normally for them to take away. Thus, they leave for work, their wife prepares lunch at home by 10 or 11, and then the dabba guy takes and delivers it around lunchtime at 12:30, hope this helps!
A 2 or 3 hour delivery is good?
Considering the distance, the cost, and the delivery window, yes, it is very good.
5:17 i DO have it this good. i am from mumbai
I love how half of the comments are from top gear y'all passed the vibe check
3:06 My cousins live on that street 💀💀💀
So can anyone tell me why it's more efficient to deliver the food kilometers away rather than buy it from the local restaurant.
Or just bring the food to work yourself? The dabbawallas just deliver the food from your home anyways, it's not restaurant food.
Because it is healthier, which means less lifestyle diseases (like diabetes) in your population, which means a more productive population and less stress on the healthcare system. Overall, this is more efficient for the nation.
@@freedomofspeech2867 wrong. ive seen you reply on so many comments just saying "same" like a redditor and adding nothing of value. so once and for all, understand that the food is prepared by other households and kitchens that are a part of the system. the food they carry is often not from the house of the person theyre delivering to.
@@anonymoushoopla3694 Ok, if that's true then that settles it, interesting. If it's from their own home like HAI says then I'd still find that dumb. If I didn't answer to so many people I probably wouldn't have gotten your answer, that is why I replied to so many people :)
@@freedomofspeech2867 ill try to give you the reason which is closer to the real one.
1. Mumbai is expensive af for an avg indian. Many bachelors live here in shared flats without their families. They dont have the luxury to buy a full fledged kitchen and neither the time to cook food early in the morning, as indian food is made on the spot and dosent use premade refridgerated bread, veggies. You need to first roll chapatis (common staple bread in mumbai), heat them on a pan, then prepare a bhaji (cooked vegetables). This takes 30 mins to 1 hour.
2. now you would think 45 mins avg is not a lot of time. But people need to reach their offices at 6-7-8 and even with trains it takes 30 mins to an hour to reach office. One dosent want to tire themself early in the morning. And if we compare the costs, overall the "dabbas" are cheaper then buying and cooking it yourself.
3. You dont have to handle the washing and cleaning of utensils used to make and transport the food.
4. The food is homemade, generally by women who are illiterate and cant do other jobs, this acts as a way of sustenance for them. OR some dabbas are even made by family members who just use the dabbawala system to transport it.
1
I had stuffing for lunch and I took that wet bread comment personally.
I love that so many people saw the title and immediately remembered they’d seen it on Top Gear 😂
“I know they’re not many, but they’re much hotter than usual!” 😂😂😂😂
I’m from Mumbai and my grandparents (who live in Mumbai) always ordered from Dabbawalas when they went to work.