Street Fast Food --- In Spanish

Hola gente.
En esta ocasion les quiero contar un poco de la comida que se vende en las calles de Mumbai.
Son puestos que se arman y se desarman todos los dias.
La gente va desde sus barrios a la ciudad y arma estos puestos con comida muy barata y muy sabrosa. con un grado de higiene bastante bajo.

Algunos de los nombres de lo que se puede comer son: Sev puri, Pani puri, Behl puri, burgi, egg sandwhich, chai (te), cafe, choclo tostado en carbon, mani tostado en arena (muy bueno), jugo de caña de azucar y muchos otros tipos de jugos.
Hay muchos mas. yo los que conozco son esos.

Voy a tratar de filmar los diferentes tipos de comidas para que los vayan viendo.
Yo usualmente me alimento bastante de esto.

Eso si hay que pedirle siempre sin picante porque sino es imposible comer.

En el video miren los detalles. Miren la tecnica con que lo hace, miren la plancha que tiene, no se pierdan en donde pone el producto cuando esta listo.

Espero comentarios y preguntas.

Saludos y les voy a tratar de mandar mas videos de diferentes tipos de comida en la calle.

Dhobi Ghat

Big Laundry Mahalaxi Dhobi Gat

Getting to know

On the train from the south to the north watching to the right at Mahalaxi station in Mumbai city, exact in the center of the city, you can view nothing but slums-ceilings, (lots of them by the rail line), but in that particular spot at Mahalaxi station you see a colorful, strange eyes-opener place.
The very first time I saw this I asked the people next to me what that is. As soon I got the answer I got to know that I wanted to visit “the Big Laundry”.
A gigantic amount of different type of garment and clothes, from simple t-shirt to big white bed hospitals sheets hanging on the clothes-line all over the place.
Get off the train, make a left on the corner and 50 meters walking you start seeing the big laundry, not a place full of industrial machines or a neighborhood full of laundry shops or any type of industrial area, but a non-usual spot full of concrete sinks.

From above you can see this. Is like another slum in which in between the line of houses you notice this line of sinks.

What is it

More than 3000 people living like in a small closed neighborhood, working as a laundryman.
They get out of their houses, (3 or 4 square meter with 4 people or more inside, not too much space in Mumbai is one of the main drawback in the city), and the very first thing they see are buckets, soaps, water, clothing everywhere hanging around; it is their workplace.
It is a kind of a one square meter concrete pen without any roof in which the Dhobi (Laundryman) step inside of it and washes the clothes.

Core work

Procedure seems simple from outside: clothes are soaked into the water and flogged against the concrete; they rub some soap against the piece of cloth and rubbing with strong against the washing table to remove the flecks.

Think about plenty of grandmas inside a big sink washing clothes in the old fashion way one next to the other for hours and hours under the sun, but instead of Grandmas, young men in a really good shape.

No washer-machine, no electricity, no wasting of water, a cheap product and like a lot of thing here with very few technology.

Hospital bed sheet are also soaked into a chemical to eliminate the bacteria, water is being boiled in “the Boiler” (see picture) is not but a tank over two pillars and below of this, fire, wood fire. No electricity in this process makes the service cheaper.

The prices are really competitive: 5 rupees the piece for washing and ironing; one day; and sometimes depending on the living area, also delivery.
They make approximately between 120 and 180 Rupees a day.

They don’t use electricity for the laundry process tough (only to dry in monsoon season) but the place is of course full of services.
Electricity and water is given by the government, 300 Rupees a month is what the pay for this resources.

Since India has become a member of the global market with the benefits that this brings in life comfort, the middle class is getting washer-machines and ironing technology, consequently they are no giving clothes to be washed by the Dhobis. Their business strategy is changing though, now the Big Laundry first service is to the hospitals and hotels.

Although the Washer machine gives more comfort, the waste of water of it is so high that makes the dhobi, in this sense, the best solution for the environment.

Like Dabawala this is another type of job for semi-illiterate people here in the city that with few technologies can get a salary in the middle of the new globalization era.

Hope you liked it.

Wait for comments.

More photos. hit the photo to zoom in.
Mas fotos abajo. cliquea la foto para que se agrande.

Cambiando de tema Politica Argentina

Este mansaje es lo que dice wikipedia de Prat gay, no tengo donde poner esto mas que aca, se que no tiene que ver con India pero me gustaria que lo lean.

Esta gente no vivio toda la vida del estado, es hora que votemos a este tipo de personas, jovenes educados, inteligentes, trabajodes y con ideas.

Saludos

Alfonso Prat Gay is an Argentine economist and politician. He was Governor of the Central Bank of Argentina 2002-04 and is a candidate forNational Deputy for the Civic Coalition in the 2009 elections.

Prat Gay graduated in economics from the Universidad Católica Argentina in 1989 and gained his Masters in 1994 at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is a PhD candidate.^[1]

In 1994, Prat Gay joined JPMorgan in New York and went on to work for the bank in its Buenos Aires and London offices until 2001. He co-founded APL Economía, an economic consulting firm.

In December 2002, Prat Gay was named Governor of the Central Bank of Argentina at just 37 years old, serving until September 2004.^[2] He won the 2004 Euromoney Central Bank Governor of the Year award for his work.^[3] He fulfilled its mandate and did not accept the offer from president Kirchner to have another term of six years due to disagreements with the president about the independence of the Central Bank and the anti-inflationary policies.

Prat Gay is Chairman of Tilton Capital, an asset management company. He is President of Fundación Andares para el desarrollo de las Microfinanzas.

Prat Gay joined the Civic Coalition of Elisa Carrió and was named as Carrió's choice for economy minister had she won the 2007 presidential election.^[1] He has been confirmed as the head of the Coalition's list for Buenos Aires City in the 2009 elections for the lower house.^[4]

Alfonso Prat Gay website: ^[5]

Dabbawalla

Dabbawalla

What is a Dabbawalla?

Dabawala means, in Marathi language, person who carries a food tiffin.

Dabawala is a person in Mumbai, INDIA, that collects freshly cooked food in food tiffin from the houses of the workers delivering it to their respective workplaces and returning back the empty tiffin using different types of transport. They use not fuel at all; walking, bicycle and train are the transportation.

They wear a white Gandhi cap (see photo).

There are in Mumbai 5000 semi-literate Dabawalas that every single day deliver daily homemade food to 200000 people within a radius of 60 kms. in just 3 hours. Carrying 200000 tiffin(dabas) per day, that makes 400000 transactions every single day.

Why amazing?

Three main points

1. A Dawabala charges Rs.200 (almost $5) monthly per customer, irrespective of distance, weight or space.
Home made food cost around Rs. 8. That is around Rs. 176 a month. That makes total cost of Rs. 376 ($8) a month for having home-made food everyday. Healthier and cheaper than any fast food chain or any eatery there.
Guaranteed, they have an error in deliveries of one in 16.000.000 deliveries. Never!

2. They don’t pollute, because they don’t use any fuel; just train, walking, pushing cartage or riding a bicycle.
Pleas take into account Mumbai’s traffic! Chaos; a few traffic lights, millions of people walking around on the streets (no side walk), thousands of cars, no rule on traffic and even though all this the transactions are made properly in time and in quality.

Zero pollution
Zero Fuel
Zero Disputes
Zero modern Technology
Zero Investment
100% Customer Satisfaction
99.99999% Performance

3. The logistic system is other the main points, everyday 400000 transactions are made, no computer system, no GPS, no software involved. Low cost and, zero pollution and an effectiveness never seen before.

How works?

This service was originated in 1880. In 1890, Mahadeo Havaji Bachche, started a lunch delivery service with about 100 men. In 1930, he informally attempted to unionize the dabawalas. Later a charitable trust was registered in 1956 under the name of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust. The commercial arm of this trust was registered in 1968 as Mumbai Tiffin Box Carriers Association.

As mentioned above, there are 5000 Dabawala in Mumbai city.

They are organized in groups of 25-30 Dabawalas with a leader called Mukadam.
The Mukadam responsibilities are: namely, sorting out the tiffin at the hub, maintaining a record of payments, arranging substitutes for absent Dabawalas, settling disputes, scouting for new customers and ensuring customer satisfaction.
The Mukadam and his group are supposed to generate their own revenue and manage day to day functioning.

The 120 groups of Dabawalas are independent among them; however they share information in new clients, knowing the geography of operational areas, etc.

Each Dawabala earns approx. Rs 5000-6000 a month. Thought each has about 25 to 30 customers.
Our turnover is INR 50 crores (500 million ruppes) every dabawalas is a shareholder in our Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supliers Charity Trust.

No alcohol during work hours and carry identity cards. Punctuality is a necessity. No Dabawala is allowed to undercut or outsmart his colleague.

Daily journey of a dabawalas

8:30 a.m. Dabawala arrives to the client home, picks up the daba(can) and moves on, there is no interaction with any member of the clients household.

After the dabawala place all the tiffin on the bicycle or pushcart.

9:20 a.m. With the bicycle full of tiffin he goes to the suburban railway station.

9:30 a.m. The sorting operation begins with dabas (tiffin) sorted according to destinations and placed in cartages that are specific to each destination. The cartages come in two standard sizes, accommodating 24 and 48 dabas (tiffin) each.

9:41 a.m. The train arrives and the cartages are placed in a special compartment next to the driver’s cabin.

10:21 a.m. Train arrives to one of the major hubs. The cartages are unloaded and bundled with those arriving from other collection centers. They are re-sorted according to destinations.

110:5 a.m. Cartages are located into the suburban train for onward journey to the final destination terminals.

11:45 a.m. The suburban train reaches the terminal station. Dabas (tiffin) are re-sorted, now according to specific delivery routes.

12:10 p.m. Dabas are placed in destination-specific cartages and hitched, typically on to bicycles or pushcarts for delivery to individual clients.

12:30 p.m. The daba is delivered at the doorstep of the clients workplace.

The delivery process is reversed in the afternoon. The empty daba is picked up between 1:15 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. for its return to the client’s home early that evening.

So as you can see there is an outstanding logistical system, in which each Dabawala needs the group to perform well.

This works becouse of the Indian low labor wages?
Do we need to re-think the way we manage our business?

Mano