Dabbawallas are shrewd businessmen

Being a bachelor, single and away from home life gives me several privileges. There is no one who ask me to clean my room or wash my clothes. No one says that you are a nutcase just because I play loud music while drinking beer and think if my mom ever came to know about this she will have a heart attack and hence I must always deny to that I drink, smoke or wear the same jeans to work for the whole week or two.

The only problem I face because I live alone is dinner. I have stayed in a hostel during my graduation and my life improved a lot after I got a job, but sometimes I feel that I am still eating food from my hostel’s mess. The food my dabbawalla supplies sometimes makes me wonder whether my dabbawalla has got a hidden agenda of making me go on a diet.

My dabbawalla doesn’t supply bad food always. He specializes in supplying insipid food and makes an exception when his payday approaches. I have analyzed his business tactics without Microsoft excel and concluded that he is a shrewd businessman and as is the case of every shrewd businessman his customers hate him.

It is not that I have not tried different dabbas. Lunch is the tool through which I have experimented with a few dabbas and found that in Pune every dabbawalla is a shrewd businessman. I think the dabbawallas are like American MNC’s. They all supply goods that have been outsourced from the same factory. Unfortunately, unlike American MNC’s ,,they don’t have a corporate culture. Hence, they don’t have a call centre outsourced from Gurgaon or Bangalore that I can call to vent my anger. Hence, I am writing this blog.

I once cancelled my dinner dabba and resolved that every night I will eat at a restaurant. This plan worked successfully until a few deadlines in the office started approaching. I don’t have the energy to go to a restaurant or order food when after I leave office after 9 pm and so after spending a few nights eating Maggie and biscuits, I was back to dinner dabba.

The only good thing that came out from my failed resolution was that I became aware of the reason due to which dabbawallas supply food that ensures you will never have to visit VLCC for weight loss.  The reason dabbawalla don’t care for their customers is because they know the customers have no better options.

To sum up

Dabbawallas are like cellular service providers. You switch hoping better service and after a few days realize that everyone in this business promises great service but rarely delivers.