Mauli Bachche, 40, has been a dabbawala for two decades. His day starts at 07:00 from his home in a Mumbai suburb. By 10:30, he has collected lunchboxes from homes and small kitchens across his neighbourhood and loaded them onto trains bound for offices across the city.
By early afternoon, the deliveries are complete. At 14:00, the return cycle begins.
Then comes his second job, where he collects small daily savings deposits from shopkeepers on behalf of a finance company before finally returning home around 22:00. By then, he has spent up to 15 hours working and travelled more than 100km (62 miles) across the city.
He has two children - a daughter in her final year of school and a son in Grade 10 who hopes to become a cricketer.
"Before Covid, I used to deliver 25 dabbas. Some of those people are now working from home, some have lost their jobs - only 15 customers remain," he says.
"Income from dabbawala work is very low. Everyone is doing more than one job."
For the older men in the business, the worry is not so much for themselves - it is for what comes after them.
"In our time, we managed to survive," says Baban Kadam, who has worked as a dabbawala for 35 years. "But with today's cost of living, the younger generation will not come into this work. Everyone wants a better-paying job or business."
Ramdas Baban Karvande, president of the Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association, says the network no longer delivers across all parts of the city as it once did.
The association is now considering shift-based work so dabbawalas can take up part-time jobs alongside their morning deliveries.
"This will allow them to earn from other work or small businesses," Karvande says.
Even so, he is unsure how long the system can survive.
"We are continuing for now," he says. "But we cannot say what will happen in the future."
For the time being though, each morning, Mumbai's trains carry men weaving through crowded platforms with stacks of steel lunchboxes - preserving a tradition that was once synonymous with the pace of the city, but now risks being left behind by it.
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