15 April,2011 06:29 AM IST | | Shailesh Bhatia
About 5,000 dabbawalas from city plan to attend their annual village fair in Khed near Pune, will be back on April 21
Over the next five days starting today, those of you relying on your diligent dabbawalas for healthy, home cooked meals may have to make alternative arrangements.
Over 5,000 dabbawalas in the city, most of who hail from Mawa and Rajguru Nagar villages in the Khed district near Pune, wish to visit their village fair.
The dabbawalas of Mumbai have a Six Sigma certification by the Forbes group, which translates into one error on every 16 million transactions
Though mostly illiterate, the dabbawalas of Mumbai, world-renowned for their efficient delivery system, have a Six Sigma certification by the Forbes group, which translates into one error on every 16 million transactions.
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The dabbawalas are responsible for transpor-ting nearly 2 lakh lunch boxes to and from various houses and offices in a single day by using their indigenous marking system, signifying the correct address.
Raghunath Medge, Mumbai Dabbawala Sangathana Pramukh, said that though the fair, called Ramdevan festival honouring their village deity, is an annual affair, it will be celebrated on a much larger scale this time around, and they would like to visit it.
"We have organised special bullocks from Kolhapur for races and have invited wrestlers from all over Maharashtra to display their strength and agility. The evenings are reserved for a tamasha that will have some of the best lavani dancers," said Medge.
He added that all dabbawalas fulfilled their duty of returning the tiffins to their respective homes last evening, and by 7 pm, took buses, trains and hired jeeps to reach their villages in the district of Khed.
Luckily there are a couple of holidays in the next couple of days, which combined with the weekend, should not cause much of a problem for our clients.
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"It is just a matter of 2-3 days and we will be back on April 20 and ready for work next day," Medge said.
Did You Know?
Over 5,000 dabbawalas are responsible for delivering nearly 2 lakh tiffins in the city every day
Fix your lunch
FIVE things you can do when the dabbawallas are away
1 Carry lunch from home
2 Order in from a restaurant
3 Carry fruits
4 Latch on to a friend, who goes home for lunch
5 Skip lunch Think you are fasting/dieting
Voices
Eating outside food for even a couple of days is not only difficult and boring, but also unhealthy, as it seldom agrees with my stomach.u00a0
Harshal Malaviya, Purchase executive
We just take dabbawalas for granted owing to their level of efficiency. It is only when we are forced to miss out on home-cooked food and order expensive, greasy gravies from restaurants, that we realise their importance.u00a0
Sonali Rao, Private sector executive from Bandra
