There was a time, when I was a happy man; Living life, having to just commute 3 kilometers to work everyday over what was just a matter of 15-20 minutes. Then,....... I got married. Life changes after marriage they said. There would be sweet and bitter battles they said. The biggest battle of them all will be traffic, is what they did not say.
It all started that fateful Thursday evening as I was driving home on my daily 1 hour commute across Bengaluru city. Inch by inch, the mass of metal creeped forward unable to move in any other direction. There were moments when I thought, Lets just get out and walk. As I assessed various methods of time pass, various excruciating ways of torture, I thought, maybe I should share this pain with another person. What better way to enjoy this than to watch another fellow passenger go through the same rigours of daily commuting in Bangalore. *Evil grin*. Thus began my hunt for the carpool mate.
My hunt ensued on Social Media and various platforms(The shaadi.com equivalent of carpooling apps) and I found some matches. I am serious, there is so much one has to look at; Good timings, direction, personality, well groomed(I don't want the person to stink up my car) social preferences( talks a lot, stares in silence etc), acceptable dowry.... (:P). In the end I got one regular agreeable carpooler whose timings worked out to match conveniently on most days and we had a carpool agreement going on. However, given the work schedules of each other, there were still days when I'd be driving alone and wishing I could find another soul to torment on this rather lonely intergalactic journey towards the end of the universe. I mean, err drive to work and home. There were days, I used to wonder, ' What if I were a cabbie?' Looks like, Uber heard me.
Voila, Ubercommute. Ubercommute is a concept, where a regular commuter can take fare paying passengers who are travelling in the same direction as them. Uber does the matching, once I enter my destination. Of course there are caps, where I can only do two trip s a day, i.e. to work and back and the passengers are those who opt to Uberpool, which is a sharing trip. According to Uber, the passenger pays substantially lesser than what they pay on Uberpool and the whole component comes to me. Sounded like a fair deal, so I signed up.
Voila, Ubercommute. Ubercommute is a concept, where a regular commuter can take fare paying passengers who are travelling in the same direction as them. Uber does the matching, once I enter my destination. Of course there are caps, where I can only do two trip s a day, i.e. to work and back and the passengers are those who opt to Uberpool, which is a sharing trip. According to Uber, the passenger pays substantially lesser than what they pay on Uberpool and the whole component comes to me. Sounded like a fair deal, so I signed up.
Day 1: The typical Bengaluru ITzen
My first passenger was a rather confused soul. Sceptical would be the right word in fact as our conversation was on these lines:
Pass 1: Hi is this Uber?
Me: Hi, err, yes I've reached the pickup point.
Pass 1: Oh, I'm right outside I don't see you. (He was standing right behind my car)
Me: I'm in this Blue i10 with the hazards on right in front of the building.
Pass 1: Oh, err (Stares at my car for a minute and then treads slowly towards it), haan, i'm coming..
As he got in, his first question was, " I didn't know you could drive with private plates for Uber??" and a cynical " Are you a criminal??" Look. My silly grin clearly didn't help either because his next question as I continued to explain what Ubercommute was, was "I hope you're not a serial killer?". I did point out that I wouldn't mention it even if I was. He did remain a tad quite for a while after that until we reached some traffic. :P However we did have a conversation going after that and I soon got to know that he was a (guess what??) a start up entrepreneur educated in an (again guess what) IIT. Dime a dozen in Bangalore. Pfft. We got chatty, exchanged visiting cards and he even invited me to join him for a beer as he was meeting his friends. I of course politely declined and got on with my journey while mildly surprised and happy that this was beginning to sound like a very interesting way to meet new people. Passenger number two however was just waiting a few days away, to completely change my opinion.
Day 2: Uber Taxi
Another workday evening and I was cruising along home when my usual carpool buddy hopped off a couple of stops early to grab a bite. I thought, "hey why not" and switched on the Uber app. Viola! A passenger said Ola!. :P The pop up indicated that it would be a girl and from the name, I was guessing a reasonably cute one at that too. (The devil inside arose with an evil grin while the other half of the brain went into Mayday Mode shouting 'Aswin! you're Married now! BEHAVE!!!' ) . Anyhow, after calming myself down, I wait at the designated pickup point and Passenger Number 2 arrives shortly thereafter. She gets into the rear seat and says" lets go". I turn into my "transporter mode" and proceed to deliver the "package". However I realised shortly that this package was not the talkative kind; Atleast not to me. I asked two questions, got single word answers and then dead silence. A minute later, I hear "Hellooowwww.....What'cha doin..." and a rather long flirty conversation ensues,......on the telephone; All the way to the destination. That day, I truly became, just a cabbie. :/
Day 3: The Delhi guy ( No offence, but you know where this is going)
Having experienced the wrath of the silent " I don't want to talk to my cabbie" female passenger, I thought it would be prudent to stick to accepting only male passengers going forward and I did. I happened to meet a young(er than me) chap who happened to work in that big big AtoZ company in my building :P and was looking to catch a ride to a pub after work. He was passenger Number 3. The conversation started with 'Bhaiyya where are you' and ended with 'Sir where are you' as I dragged the conversation from Hindi to English. We slipped into easy conversation once he understood what I was doing and we had a friendly chat about how it was something actually fun and meeting new people. I started sharing my two experiences and talked about how I picked up a girl passenger and had 20 minutes of silence in my car. Silence which I don't have even when i'm alone. His next question was "Can you pick up girls like this?" I gave a matter-of-fact reaction,"yeah, sure, there is no gender bar for passengers, you can pickup guys and girls".
Gives myself a minute. Then the light bulb worked. "Duuuuude!! Nooooo. I meant pick up a female PASSENGER. Not hit on them!!!". However, my shock and reaction didn't seem to work on him much as he started scheming on how he'd approach women as a cabbie.The Title of this section says it all I guess. :P
Post that, I had some non-eventful trips driving to work and back and met a few interesting people including a female who was rather willing to have a nice conversation especially once she realised that I work in her building and was not a driver. Therefore I concluded that Days 4,5 and 6 went along comfortably well.
My regular carpool mate once told me a story of his colleague in Delhi, who used to work late shifts that end around 12 a.m. He'd book a cab at 11.30 p.m. and every time the cab guy would call, he would say "Bhaiyya 10 minutes", "Bhaiyya 5 minutes" and inevitably delay the process every 15 minutes for so long that the driver would have snugly settled himself in for the night by the time this guy was ready to board the cab. I thanked my stars I had no such experiences, until that fateful evening....
My regular carpool mate once told me a story of his colleague in Delhi, who used to work late shifts that end around 12 a.m. He'd book a cab at 11.30 p.m. and every time the cab guy would call, he would say "Bhaiyya 10 minutes", "Bhaiyya 5 minutes" and inevitably delay the process every 15 minutes for so long that the driver would have snugly settled himself in for the night by the time this guy was ready to board the cab. I thanked my stars I had no such experiences, until that fateful evening....
Day 7: The 'Bhaiyya 5 minutes'
I found a trip request, from a point midway to a destination just a street away from my home. I decided to accept it. Oddly, it got cancelled a minute later while I got stuck in some minor traffic. I should have left it that. However, the same request came up a minute later and I decided to accept it. Little did I know that it would be my test of patience.
I reached the pickup point and called the passenger. The name was not clear since this particular person seemed to have only given the initials. Turned out, it was a girl. She said 'Bhaiyya, 5 minutes". I should have known.
Fast forward 10 minutes: I call her up again and she says, " Bhaiyya, just coming". I sigh and wait.
Another 5 minutes: A bunch of girls walk out of the office block toward my car. They look like college kids so I think its not them. However, one of them stops right next to my car, opens the rear door, puts her bag in and continues to talk to them. " err, hello, are you the ride sharing person?" I ask. She says, 'Yes Bhaiyya, 2 minutes." 10, to 5, to 2. I'm looking at 30 second extensions now. another 3 minutes later, I ask, a little impatiently "I have places to go can we move?". I think until that point, she hadn't realised that she was on an ubercommute and was thinking I was a regular cab driver. Never again, I tell myself. The horror, of the "bhaiyya 5 minutes".
Days 8,9,10 went along uneventful with me meeting another a bunch of new interesting people and even had two different people headed in different directions on the same trip.
Day 11: The pool that wouldn't end
I learnt my lesson the hard way. I shall carpool only with one Ubercommuter. Why? because the Uber app is stupid.
Scene: A regular evening off from work. Carpool buddy is working late. I switch on Uberpartner.
I get a commuter heading to a location 1 km from my house and starting from WTC. Excellent I think. I accept the ride and after the customary conversation of "Hey this looks like a personal car and yes, this is ubercommute not cab etc etc" we settled into the long commute ahead of us and talked about work and Bangalore and such. The app buzzed in the distance, suggesting a pool. However, it's such a cranky app, that it thinks I shouldn't know the pickup or dropoff points. Basically a 'Guess the locations' game. I decide to try my luck and accept it. Turns out the pickup point was just further down the road. Not bad so far. I pick up the two people and ask them "Where's the drop off point?". The next two words I hear, are the biggest, baddest, meanest combination of words that give horrible horrible nightmares to any Bangalore motorist: Marathahalli Bridge. What ensued, was an extra hour on the road and an exhausted me. No more, No more I said.
Day 12: How I possibly pissed a lady and a handicapped person on the same day.
Off from work. Carpoolbuddy ditches again. On comes the app. Another request. The location looks fuzzy on the map but reasonable close to home, so I accept. After I accept, it shows a location about 8km away from my house! What on earth Uber?? Am I carpooling to the moon now?? You sneaky App, you. I call up the passenger, a lady with an insanely long name I'm not even sure how to pronounce it. " Hi, I'm calling regarding the ride share. I'm at the pickup point". "I'm coming" she says. She promptly arrives too. Well and good. I point out the location is far off and I'm not sure if we should carpool on this one and she gets all agitated "I've been trying to find a ride for more than 30 minutes, can we start now?" I think, oh well, I understand it can be tough and lets not get on her bad side yet(Worst case scenarios running in my mind), So we start off. I keep asking for directions and she goes, "Can't you use navigation?". Hmm, why didn't I think of that? I shut up after that, but manage to explain that this is Ubercommute and I'm not a cabbie. She goes" Oh". and then radio silence. I drop her off, and think "Finally, this is over", when I get another request, matching my final leg of the journey. I think "How bad could it get?" and accept it. Standard pickup; I call and await; He calls back and says he can't come out and asks me to come inside the campus. I'm not sure how to get inside and after a few attempts at explaining my location he says, "okay wait a bit, I'm coming". I'm thinking, " Why is this guy so lazy? Can't he walk a 100 metres??", as I wait. The call isn't cut and I hear him walking, a continuous "Swoosh....Swoosh...Swoosh"like noise emanates; A bit like one of those zombie movies where its a tense scene with the lead character hiding behind a wall and waiting for the zombie to walk past. That sort of noise. Finally the person comes round the corner and I think "Oh crap, Aswin, you are going to hell for comparing this guy with a zombie". Turns out he was slightly handicapped and had issues walking. So much for being a nice social person and meeting new people through this way. Sigh.
Past day 12, it's been a bit quiet. Some interesting things I've noticed are that the men have been faster to catch up on the fact that I was not a taxi driver and that my beloved Toothless was not a cab. To be honest, I'm surprised that none of the women had any suspicion given it was a white-plate, nice blue car and a ahem ahem, well dressed English speaking driver listening to Radio Indigo. I mean, how many of us could there be? On the other hand, all my passengers(Atleast the ones that I could have a proper conversation with), be it male or female, understood the concept of carpooling and what I was doing here. Some were aware that Uber had this option and some were not; Again a 50/50 split on the genders there. I guess it did more to do with the techsavvy attitude of the person rather than the gender there.
Most of them didn't notice that they had chosen a carpool ride either until I pointed out to the SMS they received from Uber that specified that I was a commuter heading in their direction and not a driver. having gone through all these , I shall still try to Ubercommute on days I'm driving alone, just for the heck of it. The good or the bad, it has been an interesting experience and like I said, I get to share some fun moments and wade out the pains of commuting cross country. Across Bangalore, I mean. Maybe I shall see you on the road too, Comrades.
