A fireside story for the grandchildren
Ridesharing apps are usually spot on and I face minimal or no trouble with them. Touch wood. This Sunday was a different ride altogether.
My husband and I had some work near a popular landmark in Bangalore — UB City. We went there in the morning, finished our work, and decided to lunch out. The kid was at home working on some school assignments and such. Since we picked a pretty place for lunch we thought it best to ask the kid to join us. Like me, she is a sucker for good ambiance, and the place we picked was 4/5 for ambiance.
We asked her to get ready and booked a rideshare autorickshaw for her. All she had to do was hop in when it arrived at our apartment gate and hop out at the destination.
My husband and I walked leisurely to the restaurant we had picked. We had about half an hour to kill while waiting for the kid. I checked the app and noted she was about 5 minutes away. We went into the restaurant and ordered a Greek salad.
I checked the app again and found my eyeballs popping out. While she was just two minutes away, she was not two minutes away from us. She was two minutes away from some obscure destination on the other side of town. What the fish??!!
I checked the destination in the app, and it clearly showed the restaurant we were sitting at. Yet the route map showed something totally different and the auto was heading off rapidly in the wrong direction. So bizarre. What was going on?
I panicked and called the auto driver. He said he was two minutes away from dropping her off. My voice got a bit shrieky as I told him that was not the destination we had picked. What do we do now? There was no way to change the destination because the destination was still correct.
I was running out of time. If the ride ended, the kid would be stuck on the pavement at some indeterminate location. Not unsalvageable. But terribly irksome especially since it was way past lunchtime.
In a flash of brilliance, I added an extra drop-off point to the ride. I picked UB City. Hopefully, the app would not go wrong with such an iconic landmark.
I called the driver to confirm that he would continue the trip. He was equally flummoxed by what happened, but he assured me he would drop off the kid. “Promise, madam”, he said. Aww!
My husband and I chewed meditatively on each lettuce leaf of the Greek salad. The Feta cheese that I normally eat with relish tasted strange this time. We ran dry on conversation material while we stared at the app to see where the kid was. Was she headed in the right direction this time? Will we ever get to order lunch?
After an eternity, the auto appeared within a 2-kilometer range of our restaurant. My husband and I got into a heated argument about whether she should be dropped off at UB City and walk down to where we were, or if we should call the driver and re-route him manually to our location. I did not want to mess with the app. Better to get her dropped off at UB City. Naturally, my husband had a very different point of view. But the app was on my phone. I refused to hand him the phone to call the driver. Therefore I won the argument.
I called the driver to confirm where to drop her off. He assured me that he was almost there. I looked at the app and found that indeed, he was almost near our restaurant and not at UB City. How?
While we both argued about the best plan, the kid had quietly given the exact location to the auto driver. The nice man drove her straight to the restaurant. I rushed out to pay him. The joy ride around Bangalore did not come cheap. What would have cost us approximately Rs. 200 finally cost us Rs. 600.
I thanked the driver profusely for doing the right thing and not dropping off the kid across town. He was super sweet.
“It is my duty, madam. I too have kids at home,” he said.
What a gem. I tipped him, wished him well, and realized I was teary-eyed by his random act of kindness.
All’s well that ends well. The kid looked like she had had a great sightseeing tour across locations she had never been to. She also looked like she could eat an elephant.
We finally ordered food, enjoyed the ‘ambiance’ that we had paid so much for, and had a hearty laugh over the whole adventure.
In case you are wondering, I am definitely going to give the ridesharing app this feedback. I cannot imagine why the app behaved as it did. What a strange bug for the app developers to fix. I wonder if they can replicate the issue.
Anu Anniah Writes 