Abstract
The dabbawalas of Mumbai, India, currently ubiquitous in the Indian media, are a community of around five thousand semi-literate people who efficiently deliver lunches daily from homes to offices and schools across the city using its railway network. This paper is an investigation of aspects of the dabbawalas' popularity in the media and of the transformative potential of global cultural flows and media images on this localised community. It demonstrates that by using branding tactics in their interactions with authors of cultural texts, the dabbawalas negotiate the value of their iconic brand and exercise agency in the construction of their representations. Far from being victims of the globalising trend, the dabbawalas represent a localised occupational group actively evolving to respond to the changing opportunities brought on by globalisation.
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