"Dabba" To The Rescue

Was in Mysore a few days back and as always in the midst of trying to get out of Bangalore before the morning traffic trapped us in I managed to skip breakfast. 5 hours later after finishing 3 meetings and very visibly hungry I happened to spot a Subway outlet and what struck me a deal I got a foot long sub (Non Veg) @ 150. Very happy I carried the parcel to the site office where I sat down with a rather roundish looking person. He had his “BIG” lunch dabba out and pulled out a vast array of food ranging from Rotis to Rasam. I watched him as he managed to slurp his rasam, tucking into the canary-yellow lemon-rice, setting aside the sautéed green curry leaves that had done their flavoring job, pour ghee on his rotis and once you though he was done he signaled for a tumbler and made fresh butter milk from the supply of curd he had. Meanwhile I munched away my sub and wondered who on earth would on this day travel with a huge dabba. Suddenly, as if he had the question all along, the man threw me a question – How Much? What do you mean how much I though. 150 in all I said pretty proud I got a whole sub for that price. But my thoughts were soon broken rather shattered by his reply. You like to buy eat drink and be merry don’t you. I nodded. As if not even bothering to wait for my reply he went on. Youngsters all you want now days is junk food, (what was wrong with that I wanted to ask but he went on), you by and large buy everything including food, pizzas, burgers, steaks and things, all swiped through credit cards with no concern about mounting debt.

Mounting What ?? I began to wonder if the guy was mad. I finished off my last bit of Pepsi to reply to that but he was ready for his parting shot rather Salvo. Carrying around a lunch box may not be cool but you for certain are a bigger fool to have paid 150 bucks for a bun mostly filled with veggies. Saying so he scurried away and the last portion of my sub turned into a lump which just did not go down my throat.

Fast forward to a couple of hours later I was travelling back to Bangalore I happened to ponder over the events occurred during lunch. To my alarming surprise everything the man did say fell into place. Yeah we were going the so called western way of buy eat drink. There are hundreds of such places now. Every mall these days has a food court and most of them are full. Places serving “Fast Food” are on an increase even school kids do not carry “Tiffin Boxes” these days. Much like our Western Friends who would spend seven full dollars daily at the Taco Bell, Deli or Subway round the corner we too are going towards the same mindset. Spend today man for tomorrow we can either Die or Diet.

But seriously whatever happened to the option of cooking your own meals and carrying them around. 30 minutes or else free, the mantra guarantees that food may arrive here quicker than the ambulance. I still remember the days my mom packed up stuff for me to eat on my journeys. Apart from the fact that the food would keep me from eating junk outside what it did mostly was save money. As a student who has spent quite some time studying outside I know the benefit of saving even 50 bucks. Why can’t we have our Gandhi-capped Mumbai dabbawalas for networking glitch-free cylindrical lunch box deliveries across the country? Better still if one is in Bangalore walk into a Darshini for complete hassles free Meal. At a range of 20 to 30 bucks it’s a deal.

What we would not want is to turn into what America is today, overripe on credit. Thought the sub prime has been the main reason, years of swiping of credit cards to buy lunches too have some effect.