英国新闻听力 孟买的午餐快递员

过去30年里的每天上午，65岁的唐杜·克劳迪都会在孟买郊区的安娜家里拿到装着午餐的饭盒。安娜通过唐杜·克劳迪把丈夫每天的午餐送过去。

注释：

1.exemplary adj. 可仿效的, 可做模范的

2.skip v. 略过，漏掉

3.dilly-dally v. 游手好闲 

4.illiterate¹ adj..未受教育的，知识浅陋的

Mumbai's Lunchbox Carriers

65-year-old Tondu Chaudri has picked up a lunchbox from Anna Pabona's home in the suburbs of Mumbai every morning for the last 30 years. She relies on him to get her husband's daily lunch delivered. Like many of Mumbai's office workers, Mr Roy eats lunch food prepared for him by his wife while it is still fresh and hot. That's where Mr Chaudri the tiffin wala comes in. He takes the home-cooked meal to Mr Roy and he braves bad weather, illness and Mumbai's traffic to do so. For this service he gets paid about $5 a month.

Each month he makes about $20 from Mrs Roy and other customers. His work ethic² is exemplary. He hasn't skipped a day of work in the last 3 decades and he is always on time. 'The most important thing for me is to be punctual,' he says rushing me along as I stop to take a few photographs of him. 'We can't spend too much time dilly dallying³ here. I need to go and pick up my next delivery. What would happen if the office workers get their lunch late? We'd lose their trust and then we'd lost their business.' And it's a business that him and his 5000 co-workers have spent most of their lives in.

The tiffin walas of Mumbia have been running their operations for over 100 years. They are an integral part of this city's ability to function as a dynamic, financial metropolis⁴. Now delivering lunch may not sound like a particularly challenging business but imagine delivering 200,000 lunch boxes every day without one mistake. And it is their sorting procedure that has made the tiffin walas so famous. It's an age-old method that even international business schools have studied. Some of the tiffin walas have even given lectures on how other firms can copy their system. But it is a system that hasn't changed since it's its inception⁵. Now though in an attempt to boost awareness⁶ about their service, the tiffin walas are entering the digital age.

They've set up a website and mobile phone texting service to increase the number of customers. The move has come as a big surprise to Mumbai's business community. Many of the lunchbox carriers are illiterate but the technology wasn't built by them. It was built by a software engineer Manesh Tripati who was so impressed with the efficiency of the legendary⁷ tiffin walas he wanted to help them become even more profitable. 'These people are the hardest working group of people I have ever met,' he told me showing me the website mydaba.com. 'I had to do something for them to show them there was a faster, easier way to make money.' The move online and onto the texting platform has been quite successful. Manesh says that even with very little publicity⁸, 10-15 people have been enquiring⁹ about the tiffin wala service everyday. At the end of his long day delivering his tiffins, Tondu and I returned to base, the tiffin walas' office in the suburbs. Here his co-workers and him sit, chat, have a cup of tea and talk about their day. The hot topic: which one of them will learn how to surf the Internet the fastest first? For the BBC World Service, I'm Chris Warning in Mumbai.

孟买的午餐快递员

过去30年里的每天上午，65岁的唐杜·克劳迪都会在孟买郊区的安娜家里拿到装着午餐的饭盒。安娜通过唐杜·克劳迪把丈夫每天的午餐送过去。和孟买的许多办公室职员一样，乔伊先生能吃到妻子亲手做的刚刚出锅还冒着热气的午餐。这就是克劳迪先生--一个午餐快递员要做的工作。他把乔伊先生家里做好的午餐送给他，为此克劳迪得风雨无阻，哪怕身体不适，此外还得应付孟买的各种交通问题。这项服务能给他带来每月5美元的收入。

每个月克劳迪从乔伊夫人和其他顾客那里可以得到20美元的报酬。他的职业道德令人敬佩。过去的30年里，克劳迪总是按时按点，没有歇过一个工作日。"对我来说，最重要的莫过于守时，"他边说边推开我--我想停下来为他拍几张照片，"我们可不能在这儿磨磨蹭蹭，浪费时间。我得走了，去拿下一个饭盒。要是职员们午餐吃晚了，会有什么结果？我们会失去他们的信任，因而丢掉我们的生意。"为了这个生意，他和他的5000名同行把他们的大部分时间都花在上面。

孟买的午餐递送生意已有100多年的历史。午餐快递员是这个城市的主要能量之一，是他们使这个生机勃勃的金融城市得以运行。现在看来递送午餐看似不是一个特别有挑战性的工作，但是想象一下每天要递送20万份饭盒而不出一点差错。而这要归功于他们的分类流程才使得午餐递送如此出名。这种古老的方法甚至连国际商学院都在研究其奥秘所在。一些午餐快递员甚至还做演讲，向其他公司介绍如何模仿他们的管理体系。但这个体系从一开始就没有改变过。而现在午餐快递员正努力加强他们的服务意识，午餐快递进入了数字时代。

他们建立了网站，用手机短信服务来吸引更多的顾客。这一举动震动了孟买的商界。很多午餐快递员目不识丁，但这项技术的设计另有其人。它由软件工程设计师曼耐什·瑞帕提建立。他对传奇式的午餐快递员的高效率印象深刻，想帮他们多赚些钱。'这些人是我所见过的工作最辛苦的人，'他边说边给我看网站mydaba.com，'我得为他们做点什么，告诉他们还有更快更简便的赚钱办法。'网络和手机短信平台服务相当成功。曼耐什告诉我，只需稍作宣传，每天就会有10-15个人来咨询午餐递送服务。在结束了一天的递送午餐工作后，我和唐杜回到了总部--位于郊区的午餐递送办公室。在这里，唐杜和同行们坐下来聊天喝茶，谈论各自一天下来的见闻。他们的热门话题是：他们之中谁最先学会网上冲浪？我是英国广播电台的克里斯·华宁，在孟买为您报道。

1 illiterate   

adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲

参考例句：

• There are still many illiterate people in our country.在我国还有许多文盲。
• I was an illiterate in the old society,but now I can read.我这个旧社会的文盲，今天也认字了。

2 ethic   

n.道德标准，行为准则

参考例句：

• They instilled the work ethic into their children.他们在孩子们的心中注入了职业道德的理念。
• The connotation of education ethic is rooted in human nature's mobility.教育伦理的内涵根源于人本性的变动性。

3 dallying   

v.随随便便地对待( dally的现在分词 )；不很认真地考虑；浪费时间；调情

参考例句：

• They've been dallying with the idea for years. 他们多年来一直有这个想法，但从没有认真考虑过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This kind of dallying is, in a sense, optimal. 从某种意义上来说，这种延迟是最理想的。 来自互联网

4 metropolis   

n.首府；大城市

参考例句：

• Shanghai is a metropolis in China.上海是中国的大都市。
• He was dazzled by the gaiety and splendour of the metropolis.大都市的花花世界使他感到眼花缭乱。

5 inception   

n.开端，开始，取得学位

参考例句：

• The programme has been successful since its inception.这个方案自开始实施以来一直卓有成效。
• Julia's worked for that company from its inception.自从那家公司开办以来，朱莉娅一直在那儿工作。

6 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

7 legendary   

adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学）

参考例句：

• Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
• Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。

8 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。

9 enquiring   

a.爱打听的，显得好奇的

参考例句：

• a child with an enquiring mind 有好奇心的孩子
• Paul darted at her sharp enquiring glances. 她的目光敏锐好奇，保罗飞快地朝她瞥了一眼。