BBC Future has brought you in-depth and rigorous stories to help you navigate the current pandemic, but we know that’s not all you want to read. So now we’re dedicating a series to help you escape. We’ll be revisiting our most popular features from the last three years in our Lockdown Longreads.

You’ll find everything from the story about the world’s greatest space mission to the truth about whether our cats really love us, the epic hunt to bring illegal fishermen to justice and the small team which brings long-buried World War Two tanks back to life. What you won’t find is any reference to, well, you-know-what. Enjoy.

Every morning, six days a week, Kiran Gavande tours the Lower Parel neighbourhood of Mumbai on his bicycle collecting lunchboxes called dabbas from his customers. Over the next few hours Gavande and his fellow dabbawalas – “ones who carry the box” – will criss-cross the busy city multiple times delivering hundreds of thousands of home-cooked meals to workers in time for lunch.

In the last few years, online food-delivery companies like Deliveroo and Uber Eats have made having specially prepared food brought to your desk seem like the height of app-based luxury. Similar start-ups are gaining popularity in India too. But dabbawalas have been doing it for 125 years – and the newcomers have much to learn.