The yogic cab ride

BluSmart is a new cab provider who is slowly getting more and more popular in India. It’s mainly due to the guaranteed advance cab booking option and the confidence that we will get clean cabs.

It works very well for Airport bookings. The airport travel, is usually well planned and booking a BluSmart in advance gives us the peace of mind that travelling to the airport has no adventures such as unavailability of cabs or cab delays, esp. in a city like Bangalore where the Airport feels like it’s 100km away from any point in the city.

All this is great. But there is one more reason. It’s a yogic experience. Let me explain.

I had to travel to the airport and I had booked a BluSmart cab in advance. Five minutes before the pickup time, I noticed that my driver was still around 1hr away from my pickup location. I thought it is a technical glitch in the app that is showing the location of the driver incorrectly and ignored it. When the driver did not arrive at the pick up time, I made a call to the assigned driver. The driver told me that he was indeed 1hr away.

I understood that it was not a technical glitch in showing the driver’s location but a technical glitch in assigning the driver itself. Like with any software system the BluSmart software systems also have bugs. If there are no bugs, Software engineers will be mostly jobless as it takes a small fraction of time to build any system and most time is spent only on fixing bugs and fixing the bugs introduced while fixing bugs. It’s a never ending, self sustaining loop which provides job security to Software engineers.

The customer support of BluSmart intervened, and assigned another driver who was close to my home. However, that new driver took a good 30 minutes to reach my pickup location. Yes. No two locations are less than 30 mins away in Bangalore.

I was quite furious as a 30 minute delay caused a lot more uncertainty to my travel plans. When the driver finally arrived, I was so angry. However the driver was calm and composed. He kept my luggage inside and started the electric car. There was not an ounce of tension or urgency from the driver’s side. We started the trip.

As expected, the traffic in the city was quite a lot. We were travelling during the peak hours in the morning. The cab swam slowly through the traffic.

Once we reached Hebbal the road was quite clear as only the vehicles going to airport usually take that road. It was a wide 4 lane road with little traffic. Given that we had already lost 30 minutes in the pick up, I expected the driver would drive a little fast on the empty road to make up for the lost time.

Instead the driver drove at such a slow pace that I felt we were almost stationary. He did not exceed 60kmph. If u travel at 60kmph on an empty wide road, every vehicle around you will travel at a higher speed than you, and it would appear as if you are just not moving.

I told the driver to speed up a little and he said that 60kmph is the max speed he can drive at. It’s company policy. We were travelling on an MG ZS EV, electric car. It was a shame that the engineers in MG spent so much time and energy in manufacturing such a performant engine, only to be driven at a snails slow speeds by BluSmart drivers

There was a still a good 20km to the Airport.

I was quite helpless at that time. Strangely, while it was so slow, it was the fastest way for me in that situation to get to the airport. I stay put as I could do nothing but stare at the cars overtaking us.

We reached the airport entry and there was another 7 mins of travel time. The driver dropped the speed further to 40kmph. When I asked him why, he said that the speed limit inside the airport complex is 40kmph and he cannot exceed it. No vehicle, even a Scooty was travelling at a pace of 40kmph. Every vehicle was overtaking us. There was so much distance between us and the cars in front but still we did not accelerate to get to a higher speed.

That is when it struck me. BluSmart not only wants to give a reliable service but also wants to give a Yogic service. It helps you and the vehicle you are in to “slow down”. The drivers, after driving at such low speeds are unperturbed by anything at happens around them. They practice yoga and mindfulness while driving, by not giving in to the temptation of accelerating on an empty well paved road no matter what. This over a course of time makes them extremely calm and composed that no situation, on the road or with a customer makes them lose their cool.

Thankfully, I did not miss the flight and was just in time. That said, the experience was truly transcendental. That day I understood that the way to be happy and calm in life is by travelling on BluSmart. Make ten trips and you will become a Yogi.