mumbaikars are often targeted by people of other cities for their jetset lifestyle mumbaikars however not only take pride in it but also try to maintain the two ps they hold so dear punctuality and precision these traits of the citys life have percolated to even the smallest service provider in the metro and has been recognised now by none other than the forbes magazine the magazine carried a story on the famous tiffinwalas of mumbai describing them as indian efficiency at its best and these service providers numbering around 5000 and their bosses are neither iitians nor mbas not even simple management diplomaholders many of them are educated just up to school level and come from various parts of maharashtra mostly villages and small townsthe tiffinwalas is an old institution according to forbes everyday they collect some 175 lakh tiffins from homes and deliver them to offices and schools before lunchtime and then collect them again after lunch hours to deliver them back to homesmany mumbaikars prefer this service as they do not have to carry tiffin boxes with them in crowded local trains or buses since the tiffins are collected from homes much after people leave for work housewives have enough time to prepare the meals as the food comes in typical threetier tiffin the officegoers get to enjoy a comparatively fresh and sumptuous mealwhen the tiffins are ferried in trains all boxes look alike as every subscriber to the service has to buy tiffin boxes of the same size and height however the tiffinwalas mark each box with secret codes undecipherable to a common man with the help of these markings they make precise deliveries forbes quoted them as claiming that a mistake occurs only once in two monthshats off to these men who now have been internationally recognised as a famous quotation goes our lives are not in the lap of the gods but in the lap of our cooks mumbaikars can claim after the cooks their lives are in safe hands of the tiffinwalasafter talking about food the next thing that comes to mind is water but mumbaikars have now given up drinking water straight from the tap after reports of contaminated and unpotable water being supplied by the municipal corporation in parts of mumbai mumbai municipal corporation has worldclass water purification and treatment plant at bhandup and it boasts of supplying clean water to the citizen but this claim of the bmc being best services provider is fading away fast it collects huge amount of taxes from the citizens but when it comes to providing service it does not feel any responsibilityeven if a hundredth of the precision and the urge to serve shown by tiffinwalas percolates down to many of our government semigovernment and civic organisations mumbai would be a much better place to live in