An article I read on Meena Kadri’s blog really delighted me.

Excerpts:

“What do laundry and lunch delivery have to do with my favoured intersection of communication, culture and creativity? Well, in the case of Mumbai’s Dabbawallas and Dhobi Ghats – quite a lot. Via their respective coding systems, both enterprises are able to track items within their service chain to ensure accurate delivery.”

The Dabbawalla service entails collection of freshly prepared meals from the residences of suburban office workers from vast reaches of the city, delivery to their workplaces and the return of empty lunch boxes (dabba or tiffin) to its original home – all for a reasonable monthly fee. Delivering over 200,000 lunch boxes each day to workers who have diverse eating habits (often governed by religion) requires an accurate system – especially as each lunch box commonly passes through the hands of at least six men, in quick exchange, on its path from home to office and back again. Most tiffins are collected by bicycle, sorted into destination groups, then carried together on trains and cycled to the offices of their respective customers. In between they are commonly carried on hand pushed carts and large head-balanced trays – all while jostling with chaotic Mumbai rail and road traffic.

Read more here.

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Just enough ingredients to not confuse, and yet entice....

Choice 1/2 - Blimply Red

RS-II Limited Addition

While walking around Stockholm today, I stumbled upon a store with Puma’s Mongolian Barbecue setup in a rather clunky kiosk (metal tracker ball for mouse, and metal keyboard). I have to confess, I’d heard of Mongolian BBQ ages ago, but for some odd-reason (blame Interaction Studies!) – I never tried it. I finally did – remaining glued to the screen, engrossed for over 45 minutes trying out several options. I eventually had to surrender the kiosk to 3 French tourists who had been glaring at me for a while.

The results (up for vote!) are immaterial. I will probably end up buying one of them anyway. The important thing for a sneaker-maniac like myself is that finally I could break away from the shackles of choosing from endless clones of black-on-white and white-on-black sneakers which you see in almost every leather-smelling sneaker store on the planet. The MBBQ service allowed me to really play around with customization options and thought it isn’t the most ideal solution possible – its still fun! The delivery takes around 5-7 weeks (from China of course!) but it will be worth the wait to see how this service unfolds.

I definitely won’t mind paying the slightly steeper price for something which I know I made, think is unique and definitely doesn’t bore onlookers on the Tube.

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