Nupur AgrawalI am a single 29-year old girl living in a rented apartment in Bangalore with two flatmates, like thousands of other people. However, my friends and relatives often ask me, don’t you feel lonely? Bored? What do you do on weekends? Why are you wasting the precious days of your youth staying alone?
I think and think. However much we curse our honourable Prime Minister for demonetization, his Digital India initiative has surely made the lives of single people a little less lonely with an endless stream of mobile apps, which came flowing in our lives at a time when we didn’t need any of them. And no, I am not talking about Tinder and Bumble.
- Rapido
One day, during lunch, my colleague was casually talking about his girlfriend joining him for clubbing after work. So he casually invited me and my ‘boyfriend’ to come along. I said I will but he’s too busy looking for me maybe? Hearing this, my other colleague jumped up and said ‘There is a guy? I saw him pick you up from the office the other day’. That was my Rapido guy. Amidst Uber, Ola and the tiring Quick Rides, I pick Rapido, every day. The bike taxi service is faster, humbler and cheaper than all other kinds of taxi services. Though it recently got banned in Tamil Nadu, I am keeping my fingers crossed.
2. Dunzo
Remember the time when your Mom used to send you to the grocery store to get milk, curd or some urgent bottles of Real Juice or Coca Cola for the guests? Life was much simpler then. Now, urbanization, more population, more traffic and increasing distances have complicated the simplest chores. Bam! Let’s find a way to simplify things which we have complicated so well and complete the circle. Feeling cold in the office? Dunzo a sweatshirt from home. Craving dark chocolate? Dunzo it from the nearest grocery store. Every wish shall be fulfilled by a strange prince on a two-wheeler.
3. Urban Clap
I still remember the man who would come to fix a leaking tap at our home. Short, dark, deep eyes and a smiling face with a few lines on his forehead. A few days back my washbasin was clogged and I booked a plumber service on Urban Clap. I was at work, hence my flatmate took care of it. I did speak to him to understand the problem and negotiate but I don’t even remember his name and am probably never seeing his face in my life.
4. At Home Diva
You know when you are thinking about someone special, dialling their number and you stop? And then suddenly, your phone rings, it’s them. Similar stuff happens when I use At Home Diva, except that this isn’t telepathy, it’s Google algorithm. Sometimes I am mid-way through booking an appointment and for some reason, I get busy, I get a call from a lady within 5 minutes asking what I was looking for on the app. A lady then comes to your place at your time to make you feel pampered, in your own comfort zone.
5. Big Basket
On weekends, I often visit my cousin sister, Jiju (her husband) and my 3-year old niece and wonder why they like to spend hours in the crowded supermarket standing in queues to buy groceries and other things when they can simply do it with a few clicks? ‘This is a part of our family outing’, they say. While I am moved, unlike the way I feel in the crowded ‘Star’ on Sunday mornings, I only really move to pick up a bottle of wine or to shake my leg, because that can’t be done online. Regarding the grocery shopping, well, I am a BB Star.
6. Zoomcar/Drivezy
Before Ola and Uber drove their way in our lives in the metro cities, long drives with self-service was a thing. To drive to work in a tier-2 city with radio or a loved one as a companion is a precious experience. So when my sisters came to visit me in Bangalore, I used Zoomcar to drive to the Grover Zampa vineyards, around 40 km away from the city centre. I was amazed to see the efficiency of the Zoomcar app, not just in terms of unlocking and picking the car, but the way it has walked an extra mile in innovation by making us take pictures of the car before and after use to check for any kind of scratches or damages, making this a more transparent process.
7. Swiggy
Like George Bernard Shaw quoted ‘There is no sincerer love than the love of food’, and there couldn’t be a sincerer invention than Swiggy. While some wait the entire day to see their man at the end of the day, my boy is always on time – with my food in his hand and a warm smile on his face.
