‘Shaheer Khan.’ Gaurav read the name on the badge. He immediately felt a jolt of irritation run through his body. ‘How can they be so irresponsible? Today is Akshay Tritia for God’s sake and they send him to deliver? Wow! Just wow!’
Gaurav had placed his pure-veg dinner order through that famous online food delivery portal Tomato. He had made sure, going by his ritualistic habit of having vegetarian food on that auspicious day, to order dinner from a place which follows all the ‘vegetarian policies’ strictly.
‘I was so careful, but then, these idiots do this!’ he thought. Without opening the door, he angrily said, “Keep it by the door. I’ll collect it.” He didn’t want to collect it directly from his hand. The delivery boy kept it down and left.
Gaurav quickly opened the door once he left and picked up the parcel. He was a bit hesitant to touch it at first but then he didn’t have any choice. Placing another order would pose the same uncertainties of who the delivery boy would be.
He started eating his food. The food was delicious as usual. Gaurav was aware of the high quality of food that particular restaurant offers. But this time the deliciousness seemed a little less obvious as he was still fuming with the name of the delivery boy.
He somehow managed to finish half of his food when he decided that he’s had enough. He went to bed right after as he had to get up early next morning. There was an important meeting at office. He had planned to reach office earlier than usual to be able to prepare for the presentation that he was supposed to give at that meeting.
He tried to fall asleep but was unable to as he was still feeling quite upset. Just then, he thought of reporting the incident to the company’s official Twitter handle. He wrote a detailed thread where he vented his fury and frustration about the incident and tweeted it tagging the official company handle.
He felt a bit better after hitting the ‘send’ button and slept off a while later.
Gaurav had a habit of checking out his phone right after he woke up every morning. That morning also he picked up his mobile and immediately sprang straight up from his bed. 70k likes, 30k retweets, 50k replies and a trending hashtag that read #GauravTomatoIncident.
He was shocked to see that at the same time felt proud of himself. ‘I’m famous now!’ he gave away a sigh and thought.
But Gaurav knew that he didn’t have time to read and reply to all the tweets. He had a meeting to attend to. He started to get ready to go to office even though his mind was upto its trick of reminding him of his viral Twitter post at all cost. ‘There must’ve been mixed replies for sure.’ Anyways, I’ll check out as much as I can when I get back.’ he thought.
He got ready to go. He’d planned to pick up breakfast on the way. But his head was really confused that morning. He really couldn’t shake off his mind of the thought of that viral post.
He gave a glance at his phone and thought of checking out a few of the tweets before leaving. But before he could open Twitter, he saw the time on his mobile. ‘Holy cow! I’m late as hell!’ he thought and quickly left his house. He realised that he’d have to ditch his plan of picking up breakfast and head straight to office instead.
As he went out of his residential complex he immediately got a running ric. ‘Really lucky! Thank God I don’t have to stand in the queue today.’ he thought. He quickly got into the ric and left. His office was not that far from his house. He reached his office in about 20 minutes. As he asked the ric driver to stop, he reached out for his wallet in his back pocket.
And then he realised, he forgot his wallet. With all that was going on since morning, he just didn’t remember to pick his wallet up from the table before he left. With him being early, there’d be nobody from whom he can ask for money.
A little embarrassed he asked the ric driver, ” Friend, are you a regular in the ric stand from where I got in?” “Why, what happened sir? I’m actually a roaming ric. I don’t have any particular stand as such.” He replied.
“Ok! So, what happened is that I left my wallet at home and there’s nobody that I can ask for money now. I have a meeting at office, so in that hurry I just forgot to pick my wallet up today.” Said Gaurav, without disclosing the incident of his viral tweet. The ric driver didn’t say anything upon hearing that. He just leaned back and checked out the metre. It showed 50 bucks.
“Sir, it’s ok, don’t worry, you’ve got a meeting, you were probably under pressure for that. So you forgot your wallet in a hurry. It’s completely unintentional. Inshallah! It’s my duty to consider this much for you. With His grace I’ll probably have a good day and make up for this trip. You might be getting late so you can go now sir.” He said.
Gaurav was a bit taken aback upon hearing that. He got down from the ric and slowly turned towards the ric driver to see his face. “What is your name, friend?” He slowly asked. “Altaf.” He replied, gave a smile and quickly sped off.
Gaurav kept looking at that departing ric. He realised that the feeling inside was something that he’d never felt before. It was kind of a mixed feeling which would be so difficult for him to express in words. It was wonderful as well as a bit hurtful. It simply didn’t have a name though.
‘Time for an open letter to Tomato in the evening.’ he thought as he composed himself enough to enter his office premises.
Om Shanti…..?