The Modern Tarakasur on the Ola Grounds!

(Although no pun is intended as for the upcoming Durga Puja and the killing of demons or evil forces, we must clarify that this particular demon or raakshas or asura Tarakasur, according to ancient Hindu scriptures, was killed by Kartikeya, the elder son of Goddess Durga as believed, and not by the Goddess herself. The name of the demon is being taken here just for its resemblance to the name of villain of the piece. No malice toward any and all.)

In the City of Joy, Kolkata, enthusiastic people start visiting the Durga Puja pandals (what they call ‘Thakur dekha’) from the very next day of Mahalaya, that is, from the first day of the Devi Paksha—the illuminated phase of the Moon when Goddess Durga descends on earth—as and when the Pujas get inaugurated or opened with the idols installed. They do it because of the wish to visit as many Pujas as possible and to avoid the impossible rush of crowds that start visiting in millions when thousands of Pujas are open across the city, particularly during the actual Puja days. Most people prefer taking the public transport and walk miles for the pleasure as they love doing that enjoying binge eating amid the crowds of devotees or revelers. But some others, perhaps due to increasing age or illness or to make the experience comfortable, hire drivers for their own vehicles or hire cabs for the whole of the day or the whole of the night and have hectic bouts of pandal hopping.

Our protagonists, Pinakpani and Paroma, an elderly couple whose two daughters are married off and the only son is working in a different city, decided to hire an Ola cab for the maximum allowed duration of 10 hours and planned to move out in the early afternoon and enjoy till late night. The cab driver called them half an hour before the booked time and arrived at the right time to pick them up. Pinakpani found the bearded and tall young driver amiable enough and also knowledgeable in regard to the Pujas that are already open for the public and the myriad routes connecting those.

Pinakpani told the driver to go a famous Puja at the farthest northern end of the city so that they could visit all other pandals while coming back. The journey thus was to continue for nearly an hour. After a few minutes calls started coming to the driver’s mobile phone, and slowly and steadily he got visibly upset, raising his voice, but never rejecting the calls. What Pinakpani and Paroma could understand was that he was talking to his elder brother and there were some family issues. Pinakpani got irritated when the driver was plain shouting into his phone, and curtly told him to shut up and concentrate on driving, also pointing out that the police could haul him up anytime. The driver agreed, reluctantly and gloomily though.

The rest of the journey was quiet. They got dropped near the entry gate of the Puja and the cab left, the driver instructing them to call him up ten minutes before they were to be picked up and that he’d tell them where exactly to wait.

Pinakpani and Paroma had the bonus of beholding the famous Puja they never could visit before along with a smaller one in the neighborhood. After taking tea they started walking toward the exit to the main road. Pinakpani called up the driver who asked them to wait for ten minutes at the landmark location he himself spelt out.

And then all hell broke loose. The driver kept on calling, telling them to wait there, and at the next minute asked them to move a little toward the left or the right. After doing all those unsavory exercises and still unable to sight the vehicle the couple began feeling harassed even as the humid cloudy weather increased their discomfort making them sweat profusely.

Nearly an hour elapsed and the traffic congestion plus the deafening noise all around them further heightened their unease.

Now Pinakpani was in a boiling rage, shouting at the incessantly calling driver, throwing him names and liberally using the foulest of abuses. Fearing for his health Paroma took over command and taking his phone started negotiating with errant driver. But to no avail. As Pinakpani walked away to a corner to have some peace of mind Paroma, helpless now, requested the police guard on duty to talk to the driver. The policeman obliged her and after speaking for about three minutes gave her a few instructions. Accordingly, Paroma signaled Pinakpani to accompany her to the designated spot.

In the meantime, Pinakpani was searching for all options for help on the Ola App and finally finding some space to write something about the issue he wrote a few lines requesting them to cancel the trip and punish the villainous driver and sent the message. But no reply came up.

They crossed the traffic junction through an underground subway and moved to the bus stop, on the same side of the road though. They had to move at a snail’s pace along the crowded barricaded pavement as the public buses kept on coming, stopping at the stop ahead and leaving. They were nearing an opening for boarding the buses when they saw the driver hustling up to them from the opposite side. As he began speaking to Pinakpani as if trying to explain how wrong both of them were in not finding the location or him, our fuming protagonist motioned him to stop and not dare touch his arms.

Without a word they moved into the backseat and as the driver quietly got into his driving seat Pinakpani wrote the destination of their home in the app. When there were seven hours still left of their paid rental trip.

Paroma was extremely unhappy when she found out that they were moving back home.

“How can you trust this demon to again drop us at some Puja and vanish for hours? I’m telling you; he’s doing this willfully…he needs to be home immediately to sort out family matters and cannot afford to wait till midnight. So, he’s trying to harass us out of it!” Pinakpani explained to her in a hushed tone.

“Then why are you obliging him? We should make him toil harder for our money!” Paroma argued.

“But again, as I told you, he’ll start doing the same, and maybe we’ll be able to see only one Puja in the rest of the time. So, I want to cut short the trip so that he suffers in terms of reduced payment."

For the rest of the journey, it was all quiet inside the car.

Pinakpani gave him the end OTP as they reached home. And he got another shock of unexpected proportions. The bill is the same as when booked. Not even four hours of the booked trip are spent and yet they’re being charged the full fare for ten hours and hundred kilometers!

“You’re as bad a devil as your goddamn company! No! I’ll not give you a single paisa; sort it out with your company!” Pinakpani roared as he alighted from the car. He checked his mobile and found an email from Ola waiting which promised some action in response to his earlier message. He frantically started writing a reply mail, narrating the injustice: both in terms of a villainous driver and atrocious billing. As he was waiting for a reply from the company the driver, in a surprisingly quiet mood, was standing by the other side of the vehicle and talking over his phone. Finishing the call the driver spoke to Pinakpani, “I’m calling over my brother here. You can talk it out with him.”

That worried Pinakpani: he heard of many stories about physical scuffles between passengers and Ola or Uber drivers some of which really turned ugly. Fearing for their safety he enacted a dramatic act.

He took out the notes from his shirt pocket and literally threw those over the roof of the car to the driver and didn’t wait a second more. He motioned Paroma and started walking toward their home. The driver who got about three hundred bucks more than the fare ran after Paroma, trying to return the change. Pinakpani stopped him delivering his punch line, “Have all of it, you sickening demon! Have a feast! And Maa (Goddess Durga) is sure to punish you, remember that!”

Back home, he found a reply from company telling him that as per rules applicable to Kolkata only there is no refund for rental trips and full amount is charged irrespective of the duration of the trip. He now understood why the driver was so confident! He knew he'd get his money whatever happened! Pinakpani quietly opened the app, logged out and uninstalled it. “Accursed devils! Damn your joyrides for the City of Joy!”