| DUBAI: Forget about the coding system that Mumbai's dabbawalas use to transport lunch boxes from homes to offices or the six-sigma and ISO certificates they have. The men who ensure workers in India's financial capital get their food on time credit their success to simple principles: stick to time and work is worship.
A conference of chartered accountants in Dubai this week, which heard presentations on topics like wealth structuring crisis, India's cost competitiveness, Middle East equity markets and commodities cycle, was perked up by a presentation on Mumbai's ubiquitous dabbawalas.
The men who transport lunch boxes have been a subject of study for management gurus like CK Prahalad and schools like Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and those in the American Ivy League.
Invited by the Dubai chapter of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Manish Tripathi, honorary director of Mumbai's dabbawalas, gave a presentation on the trade wearing a now globally recognizable dabbawala white cap and swearing with his hand on a tiffin box that he would “say the truth and nothing but truth” about his trade.
“Believe me, I will give you so much knowledge about dabbawalas that any of you can come to Mumbai and start working as a dabbawala,” he told an over-1,000 strong audience at a five start hotel here.
“Our work revolves around a few beliefs - the most important ones of which are sticking to time and believing that work is worship,” he said.
“Annadan is mahadan (giving food is the greatest charity). We dabbawalas have a strong belief in god. But you don't see god, do you? So, whom do you worship? People - after all, they are creations of god. You worship god by ensuring that people get to eat their food on time,” he said while making the Powerpoint presentation that was prepared for the dabbawalas by an IIM student.
“Time,” Tripathi said, “is the first thing any dabbawala has to stick to if he has to succeed in the trade.”
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