Amazing story about the "dabba wallahs" — India's 112-year-old meal-delivery system that outdoes FedEx using pictograms, bicycles, and largely illiterate (but well-compensated) deliverypeople:
As part of the tiffin distribution process, every day the meals are picked up from commuters' homes in Mumbai long after the commuters have left for work, delivered to them on time, then picked up and delivered home before the commuters return.
Each tiffin carrier has, painted on its top, a number of symbols that identify where the carrier was picked up, the originating and destination stations and the address to which it is to be delivered.
After the tiffin carriers are picked up, they are taken to the nearest railway station, where they are sorted according to the destination station.
At the destination station they are unloaded by other dabba wallahs and re-sorted, this time according to street address and floor.
The 80 kg crates of carriers, carried on dabba wallahs' heads, hand-wagons and cycles are delivered at 12.30 p.m., picked up at 1.30 p.m., and returned when they came.
The system relies on multiple relays of dabba wallahs, and a single tiffin box may change hands up to three times during its journey from home to office.
(Thanks, Tom!)
