Uber - Everyone's Private Driver..Or Detective?

As a consumer I like Uber. I can order a cab, get the estimated time of arrival, the name of the driver and the car number immediately. In addition, I can track the movement of the car on the map and it gives me cheap thrills. Uber is a boon when my children want to be picked up and I am far away; they don’t need money because my credit card gets charged. I don’t mind the surge pricing either because in the Manhattan rush hours I never manage to hail down a cab. 

I have been following the backlash on Uber’s Emil Michael’s comments on negative publicity and his suggestion that the Company should spend a million dollars to discredit the journalists who speak out against them. Michael has since apologized  and Uber has chosen to distance itself from the comment as well. 

This is what I don’t get - Michael was not making a public speech or speaking in front of  a group of investors. He was not presenting a strategy plan to his superiors. Rather he was at a private dinner and made these comments informally to a group of people he trusted. If these comments were leaked to the world why should he be forced to apologize? Why should he resign?  After all his privacy was also being impacted!

We all indulge in the kind of talk that Michael is guilty of. At dinner with friends we vent about colleagues and superiors, we fantasize about scenarios where we have enough power to overcome problems and offer crazy solutions that will eliminate the trouble makers in our lives. Even if we claim otherwise, we do get upset with negative comments and publicity.  We have secret codes and petty nicknames for people we are bothered about, mimic them and gossip about them. All of us make racist, casteist, sexist and gender  comments when we are with our own. 

Sara Lacy was one of the journalists Michael mentioned and this is what she said ,"When you do opposition research on someone, particularly with a million-dollar budget and a six-person team, it's not going Googling someone's name. It's going through their trash. It's following their kids on the way to school. It's having vans parked outside their house, all because I said things the company didn't like."  Is this a reality? Atleast not yet, but it does paint a scary picture of Big Brother Uber watching over someone and intimidating them.

In my opinion, Michael’s comments have been blown out of context. It is simple to conjure up the  image of a monster firm that will use one’s data for nefarious activities, intimidate opposition and follow one around like the mafia.  Most of the times that is not true. Many firms are creating new products to make life easier for the consumer. And most of these firms have honest ethical people leading them who are simply trying to keep their heads above water. 

We need to keep a little faith! 

What would you do?

The friday gone by, (18th July) , my 90 year old grandmother's health took a turn for the worse, and we were informed by the doctors that she would not last the weekend. My passport has been with BLS / Cox and Kings for the last three weeks for a simple booklet addition.On Friday, I called them - there was no one to take my call, and no one called back despite the innumerable voice mails I  left. I then rushed to the consulate in Manhattan, to try and figure if I could get my passport back, or some document that would enable me to leave for India that evening. 

And what transpired was a nightmare. 

The Consulate working hours at Manhattan are till 5.30 pm Monday through Friday, and I reached there to find the office shut from 3 to 4pm.  There was no one to explain what the reason was, and no officer available who I could speak with. Till 4.30 pm, no one came to the passport window where many people apart from me were also cooling their heels. 

Finally, I managed to catch someone’s attention and explained the nature of the problem and the emergency. With a sour puss expression, the ‘gentleman’  told me that there was nothing that he could do. When I asked to speak to someone in the embassy, he told me I could go to anyone and they would not help. I asked to speak to the Consular or some official  and he said they could not be bothered. I asked him if he understood the urgency. His response was that it was night time in India, and there was no emergency. I told him I would lose my granny over the weekend, and was he telling me he could not help me get to India? He snapped at me and told me to not be rude and  scampered away. No other official appeared .  At 5, we were told the consulate was shut for the day.

My granny passed away on Monday morning, and the reason I had wanted to come to India did not exist anymore. It  angered me first, and then saddened me that I am an Indian citizen, with a valid passport and visa, and yet I was denied the opportunity to meet my grandmother one last time. 

I tried to process what had just happened!  I figured there was a failure on two counts.

1. A systemic process failure - It is actually bizarre that  a mere booklet addition should take more than 3 weeks. It is even scarier that the Ministry of External Affairs has  not planned for serious emergencies. There should have been some process that enabled me to get temporary documentation to travel back home. I asked the ‘gentleman’ who had deigned to talk to me if I could receive a one way document, and my husband would take the passport and courier it  to India  in the following week. To which I received a brusque no.

1. Incompetent and callous behavior - Perhaps what galled me even more was that there was no one to listen and help.Why is it that I could not access any of the officials who are supposed to be representing me in another country?  I can understand if they could not help, but the arrogance of officials in refusing to meet is unacceptable. An embassy conducts business on behalf of its country, but it is also responsible for the welfare of its citizens in a foreign land.  Or am I missing a point here?

So here is my contention - Why is it that we choose to send such arrogant people to represent our country abroad? Is it because the great bureaucratic machinery is so secure in itself that it chooses to be badly behaved? India is full of amazingly hard working , considerate people and we can’t recruit them?  In a country where the system fails us all the time, it is our people who rise up time and again to help and lend a shoulder. Surely our bureaucracy, and the people who are selected to represent us need to be of a higher calibre. And those people can make contingency plans that assist citizens far away from home. 

In the US, if I faced discrimination from US citizens, I would take it in my stride. After all, this is not my country, and these are not my people. I am here for a brief period and don’t really care for its citizenship because I love India and being Indian. But when, in an alien land,  my own country representatives choose to be callous and unhelpful, who can I turn to blame? Is it any wonder that Indians do not get the respect due to them in foreign countries? It is because we have no respect or regard for our own…and we have the audacity to want better from the rest of the world? 

I still remain a proud Indian. Except that I am ashamed that Incredible India chooses such shoddy representatives for itself.

That Friday evening, totally disconsolate and inconsolable, all  I could tell  my NRI, ABCD and American friends in NYC was this -  The Consulate is  NOT representative India. This is not what India is. This is not what Indian people are. Don’t think negatively about my India because of a wretched few souls. Mera Bharat is Mahan, and the Indian Consulate people are not true Indians. 

I never got to meet my granny, and could only 'see' her on Skype. But I hope that this does not happen to other proud , tax paying Indians, who  may not be there for their parents, children or loved ones,all because  Indian External Affairs failed them miserably.