The Gandhi Topi

Having seen this side-cap on a lot of working men in and around the state of Maharashtra - I thought I would research and write something about what I now know to be called the 'Gandhi Topi' (or Gandhi Cap).

A dabbawala proudly wears his Gandhi Topi

I firstly thought that the cap was just part of the uniform of the Dabbawalah - the 5,000 men that gather and deliver over 175,000 tiffins in Mumbai every day (see my post here).  But then I have also seen the hat being worn by men working in the fields on the way to Goa, I saw some older gentlemen donning them on a safari in Tadoba and I've seen them worn by Koli fishermen in Worli.  The topi tops off an outfit normally consisting of white shirt or kurta and trousers (and must be a menace to keep clean!)

I asked our driver what the cap meant and why it was worn.  He replied that it is worn to show that a man is a 'proud Maharashtrian'. Upon further investigation, it transpires that the headwear is much more important than that.  Worn by Mahatma Gandhi, the cap became very popular during the Indian Independence Movement and has since become a symbol of the fight for independence, being commonly worn by politicians and political activists. Also a symbol of simplicity, Gandhi's Indian clothing (kurti pyjamas made of homespun Khadi cotton) gave a message of cultural pride and solidarity amongst India's rural masses. His trademark cap soon became part of the uniform for most of Gandhi's followers, and is still popular today amongst India's working classes - particularly in Maharashtra.

Rare photo of Gandhi-ji in his Gandhi Cap
(photocredit www.kamat.com)

What a lot of people don't know is that the actual origins of the cap in its current form, was part of Gandhi-ji's uniform when he was jailed for two months in a South African prison. Working as a lawyer, Gandhi was in South Africa between 1893 and 1914 and it is there where he first witnessed and experienced racism first hand. In fact, it was in South Africa where he first started fighting for the rights of other Indians, eventually being imprisoned for instigating a satyagraha ("peaceful violation of the law"!). In prison, the cap marked him out as a 'Negro' - which Indians were also classified as at that time.

Gandhi's death in 1948 gave the cap further emotional importance - being regularly worn by Indian leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru - India's first Prime Minister. The succeeding Prime Ministers wore the same cap (Shastri and Desai) and most members of the Indian Parliament continued to wear the Khadi clothing and cap.

India's first Prime Minister - Jawaharlal Nehru

Since then the cap has wandered in and out of fashion but became very popular again in 2011 after Anna Hazare - a prominent Gandhian - started an anti-corruption movement in India (yeah, good luck with that!). In August 2011, thousands of people wearing Gandhi caps amassed at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi to support Hazare on his 'fast-unto-death'.  The hunger strike led to a nation-wide protest in support of his cause. He was successful in exerting pressure on the Indian government as the Lokpal Bill was enacted in 2011 - giving ombudsmen the power to deal with corruption in public spaces. He is still alive. 

Although the Topi has now become part of the outfit of today's crusaders against corruption, its enduring symbolism is that of Mahatma Gandhi and his values. 

More from my collection of Gandhi Topi shots:

A Koli tribesman on his way to a wedding in Worli

A young Dabbawala

Another Dabbawala (immersed in music)

A group of Dabbawalas in their distinctive uniforms

This guy was part of a procession during Ganpati

These older gentlemen were on the back of a jeep on our Tadoba safari.

A lorry driver at Sassoon Docks

Group of men hanging around in Pali Naka

Above and Below: at Worli Fishing Village

Photo Essay: Groups No. 4

It's been a while since I posted a collection of group shots. For new readers - it is a hobby of mine to randomly stop people who are standing/milling about/working/holidaying in groups - and get them to pose for a photo. Even better and more precious if they are all wearing the same uniform.  Yes....a slight obsession!

Here is my latest lot.  Thanks for stopping by!

Railway Porters - Lokmanya Tilak station in Kurla.  Love the bright red shirts.

A group of government drivers and a couple of guards - outside the
West Bengal Secretariat (Writers Building) Calcutta

Dancers in traditional Assamese costume - Kaziranga

Farm workers relaxing and chatting - Aarey Milk Colony

More farm workers - Aarey Milk Colony

Petrol pump workers at Kemps Corner Mumbai (the non-uniformed guy annoyingly slipped into this photo!)

Impeccably turned out waiters at the Trident Hotel, Bandra Kurla

Very naughty boys at a building site in Wadala (one of them threw a stone at me when I turned my back!)

Family group at My first Indian wedding

Three proud guards at Kaziranga National Park - protecting the endangered tiger with only WWII rifles

Nature Park trainees touring Kaziranga - looking a bit Mexican-Mafioso in their scarves and dark glasses.

You may have seen this one before - schoolgirls in traditional Assamese Costume 

A few non-posed subjects:

I wasn't brave enough to ask these holy men to pose but I love the bright orange (Calcutta)

Sarnath near Varanasi - Buddhist Monks mid chant

Not posing for me but a group nevertheless!  - Dabbawalas at Churchgate Station, Mumbai

My collection starts at:

Groups No.1 and is followed by
Groups No.2 and
Groups No.3

The Mumbai Dabbawalas - Dabba Dabba Do!

Yesterday 'The Ladies Wot Have Posh Cameras' travelled down to Churchgate Station in south Mumbai to observe the famous Dabbawalahs in action (Dabbawallas, Dabbawallahs, or Tiffin Wallahs).

For the readers back home, a Dabbawala is a person whose sole job it is to collect home cooked 'dabbas' - basically packed lunches - from the homes of office workers and deliver them to said office workers via different modes of transport. After the packed lunch - or tiffin - has been consumed, the Dabbawala will re-collect the empty box and take it back home to the person's residence. Each tiffin box usually contains two or three containers - mostly carrying traditional Indian foods such as rice, veg curry, chapattis and vegetables. No doubt with a fraction of the calories of a Pret-a-Manger sandwich.

Dabbawala in his pristine white uniform

Every day, about 5,000 semi-literate Dabbawalas deliver a staggering 175,000 - 200,000 tiffins to Mumbai's office workers, using a colour and code marking system to ensure faultless delivery (codings, that would apparently baffle the most advanced of cryptographers). In fact, Harvard have made a study of this incredible delivery system due to the fact that mistakes only occur at a rate of one in six million - all done without the use of IT and cellphones. Beat that Tescos! And not only has our very own Prince Charles and Richard Branson been to meet the Dabbawalas of Mumbai, but back in 2004, the President of the Tiffin Suppliers Association addressed a group of 50 management gurus on the finer points of logistics management. Further, Forbes also awarded it a six sigma performance rating! (OK I don't know what that is but it sounds impressive huh?).

There are many persons in the dabba chain between home and office - and the deliveries are made using a kind of relay system: A Dabbawala will collect around 30 lunch boxes at around 9-10am - he will then distribute these to other Dabbawalas at the train station dependent upon the final destination of the office worker. On the train journey into the city, each carrier can transport up to 40 packages on a long tray that they balance on their heads. At the main terminus at the other end (in our case, Churchgate station but also commonly Mahalaxmi or Victoria Terminus), the dabbawalas stream off the train at around 11.30 am where they re-group outside the station to organise the onward journey of the lunches. The onward journey is usually by cart, bicycle or on foot through the heavy traffic. An amazing spectacle! The journey is then reversed upon collection of the empty tiffin boxes.

Dabbas being collected and sorted for their onward journeys at Churchgate Station.
We got told off by the police for trying to take pictures inside the station so we couldn't get any good shots of the Dabbawalas streaming off the train.

Now you may well ask yourself (as I did), why one earth these office workers don't just take their own packed lunch into work - as is the norm in the rest of the world. Well having done a little bit of research on this, I can tell you the following:

Genuine, cheap and hygienic home cooked food guaranteed: For the majority of Mumbai workers, restaurants are way too expensive to be a daily solution. On the streets, numerous outside stalls sell for a few rupees different types of snacks that you have to eat standing on the pavement in the middle of the crowd and sanitary cooking conditions are not guaranteed!

Food diversity of Indian people: With the diversity of Indian eating habits, it is very difficult to answer the specific need of each employee in a same place. “Veg” and “non veg” are usually the only two options that canteens are able to give, without taking care of all the different regime between religion, castes or geographic origin. By delivering to each employee his tiffin filled with food prepared at his home, dabbawalas solve the problem.

Time shortages: Many Indian workers have to leave very early in the morning to make their long commute to work - before 7am at least. It is enough that the individual or the Indian housewife has to get up, get their breakfast ready and send the kids off to school. The Dabbawala service affords wives a couple more hours to prepare their husband's lunch - cooking it and packing it before it is picked up from their home at between 9am and 10am. Not only that, but on the extremely crowded trains of Mumbai, it means that workers can move unhindered - with both hands free to fight for precious space.

Dabbawala as postman: In the days before mobile phones, housewives could send messages to their husbands in the tiffin package. And messages could be sent back from the husband upon collection of the empty box. (Probably 'do this, do that!' rather than 'I love you'...!).

Dabbawala as status symbol: For those households who can not afford servants, having a Dabbawala deliver your lunch is seen as the first step to having staff. After all, the service is a mere few rupees a day - and is therefore a service that doesn't break the bank of ordinary workers. Especially in Mumbai where life is already so costly for middle class people. The service generally costs about 450 Rs a month (GBP 5.50 or $8) and the ingredients themselves - very little.

So lesson over, here are more pictures!

With re-distribution of the tiffins organised outside the terminal, they fill the cart and head off to nearby offices.

Traditional tiffin boxes...

.....a bit fancier and more colourful these days...

Each tray can hold up to 40 lunches - try balancing that lot on your head!

These guys have three lots of trays - about 120 lunches which they will push through the Mumbai traffic on carts. Dabbawalas earn just 4,000 to 5,000 Rs a month (GBP 50 / $80)

Biting off more than he can chew?

Competing with the traffic for space

Most of the deliveries seem to be done by bicycle - dabbas hung off the handlebars and every other part of the bike!

Patriotic spokes

Some of the codes by which the deliveries operate

Dabbawala Conference

Another fine balancing act in the making

The Dabbawalas are from a tight knit community (mostly hailing from Pune in eastern Maharashtra) - so there is plenty of chatting and joking - and sometimes arguing - going on between the men whilst they work. They also have their own union and housing colonies and are very protective of their kind.

Dabbawala helping himself to his own dabba (I hope!). This guy was not wearing the traditional uniform but instead, jeans with a fancy belt and funky shirt (and gold chain).

The code (http://www.cookatease.com/)

A sea of dabbas.

Thanks for visiting!

Useful info from: http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/03/54/97/PDF/DABBA.pdf

If you would like to see the Dabbawalas in action, be at Churchgate station by 11.30am. Stand by the train platforms and when you see them emerging from the train follow them to see where they go and redistribute the packages outside (easier than explaining which exit!)