Master Mumbai’s streets. Deliver dabbas. Become a lunchtime hero!
Dive into the vibrant streets of Mumbai and step into the role of a Dabba Walla. In this fascinating game, you join the famous Indian lunchbox carriers on their daily journey through the megacity, bringing home-cooked food from kitchens directly to the offices of hungry employees. Your mission is to deliver the colorful and tastefully filled dabbas – the traditional Indian lunchboxes – on time and reliably. This calls for strategic planning and quick action!
Start your day by picking up the dabbas, sort them at central points, and navigate through the city’s hustle to deliver them on time. Each delivered dabba earns you valuable tips, but the path there is challenging and requires clever resource management and a keen eye for efficient routes through Mumbai’s ever-changing environment.
With lovingly designed game materials that were sustainably produced in Europe and contain less than 1% plastic, this game offers not just exciting entertainment but also a piece of Indian culture and history. Whether alone or with friends and family – this game promises lots of fun, excitement, and the occasional strategic challenge. Are you ready to follow in the footsteps of a Dabba Walla and become part of this unique tradition?
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The history of the Dabba Walla
The history of the Dabba Walla began in 1890, when a banker came up with the idea to hire a young man to deliver home-cooked lunch to his office.
This idea grew into a network of over 5,000 Dabba Wallas who deliver more than 200,000 dabbas every day. Organized in small teams, the Dabba Wallas perform an organizational and logistical marvel in the bustling streets of the megacity Mumbai every day.
Thus, the Dabba Wallas have also attracted international attention from researchers, businesses, and media.
Case studies and reports by the Harvard Business School, BBC, Arte, and National Geographic praise the highly efficient system, which operates almost entirely without modern technology and yet functions almost flawlessly.
We’ve linked a short explainer video that showcases the daily life of the Dabba Walla.
The Daily Routine of the Dabba Walla
1. Cooking
Early in the morning
The food is cooked at home and packed in dabbas.
2. Pickup
7:00 AM – 9:00 AM
The food is picked up at the doorstep by the
Dabba Walla.
3. Sorting
9:00 AM – 10:30 AM
The Dabba Wallas meet at the regional hub and sort the dabbas for further transport.
4. Transporting
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
the dabbas are transported by train to the destination station. The teams only have 20-40 seconds to load them.
5. Delivering
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
The dabbas are delivered to various offices with a 99.999% reliability rate, on time to sometimes distant offices.
6. Ret. Transport
2:00 PM – 6:00 PM
The empty dabbas are collected from the offices and returned to the households via the reverse route.
