It’s lunchtime at Aranyas, a popular eatery in Dhanbad, the coal-rich city in Jharkhand. But while just a few tables are occupied, orders are still being punched in and flying out, courtesy the swarm of delivery personnel. Clad in either crimson or orange, they wait impatiently at the service counter.
Across the city—at traffic signals and outside the many residential townships—the procession of crimson and orange never ends. This is a marked change for Dhanbad, a city that, until recently, frowned upon eating out, forget ordering in. And with food delivery becoming the new norm, many small, unglamorous, delivery-only dhabas have mushroomed.
