In August 2021 a new company made its name heard across the Indian digital space. This company called itself Zepto; their USP was (still is, infact) a promise of 10-minute grocery deliveries. This was initially met with skepticism and foreboding. After all, who needed groceries to be delivered within 10 minutes? Could you even trust the quality of the items you’d order? What if there’s traffic? What if the delivery agent needed to flout traffic rules to make sure you received your order as stipulated? What if they were subjected to even worse working conditions?
Would it really be that bad if you didn’t get your groceries in 10 minutes? Why would anyone give a shit about this company, when you already had established grocery delivery services at the time that delivered your orders in 30 minutes, by all means more than a reasonable amount of time?
The other day this image of a group of delivery riders waiting beneath a flyover began making the rounds. If Twitter had anything close to a functional search I’d probably have been able to find it, but as things stand you’ll simply have to take my word for it. Of the top of my head, that image featured 4-5 bikers waiting in tandem below a flyover, sporting colours ubiquitous with India’s burgeoning quick commerce industry. Swiggy, BlinkIt, Zepto, you name it.
Truth be told, I’d been playing around with an idea related to this theme in general, but that one image may have been the spark that set the kindling afire…
Proponents of quick commerce are quick to point out the benefits of such an industry. You save time! You don’t need to go out and trudge through the dirt for a packet of bread! You avoid pollution, traffic, people, animals while getting your basic essentials at your doorstep, all within a few minutes! A few swipes on a screen, an optional thank you to the faceless person carrying your packet of crisps that absolutely had to be delivered within ten minutes, and bam! The next few minutes are yours to savour.
A truly ideal reality. Think of the time saved! You’re free to move onto more important things.
One might make the argument that it is impossible to plan for contingencies, and it is exactly this window that quick commerce promises to fulfill. You’ve got guests coming unexpectedly; sorting out their food, your living room, your hosting responsibilities on such short notice is surely an insurmountable task. You’re heading to the kitchen to try your hand at making a curry via a reel that showed up on your feed and you notice your yogurt’s gone bad. You had a hectic weekend that passed by in a blur, and all of a sudden your kitchen cupboard’s looking rather empty.
Why not lighten the load via the plethora of tempting options available?
Both you and I know that the above isn’t all what quick commerce is used for.
Both you and I know that you’ve seen a fleet of delivery riders entering the gates of your apartment complex or neighbourhood at all hours of the day, with rather small payloads. Both you and I know that the thrill of instant gratification has led to ever-increasing loads on the delivery riders that make it possible in the first place.
Let’s get back to the “saving time” bit I’d mentioned above. The events of the pandemic, in a country as population-dense as India, proved to be a shot in the arm for quick commerce, propelling it to take over our apartment complexes, neighbourhoods, fridges, and roads. It’s come a long way: you can even order a spanking new PS5, now. Certainly something you need within the hour. Longer established ecomm players like Amazon and Flipkart have created quick commerce divisions as well, eager to cash in on this expanding market.
All this time, we haven’t stopped. Orders keep flowing, items keep coming in, and we spend more and more time within the walls of our homes.
But wait! Going out to get your own groceries is a trek, you say. You need to brave parking, haggle with erickshaws, cabs, autos, and then spend time in the store, only to repeat the process, this time with heavy bags. There isn’t a grocery store within walking distance, you observe. Even if there would be, pedestrians may as well not exist in Indian cities. You either take the form of a vehicle or you can forget having a presence on the road.
Oooof, it’s simply too much time to spend on a chore.
Given the culture dominating India’s workplaces (at least in the private sector), it should come as no surprise to anyone that the “time you save” ends up really only being utilized on work. More often than not, you end up extending your working hours beyond reasonable limits, simply because these apps have further blurred the boundaries between work and home. You no longer have to break your routine at work to get out and get your daily fruit, you can stay in and make it come to you. Before you know it, you’re further entrenched in work, and you’re not doing your personal life any favours. This isn’t a sacrifice that’ll be appreciated by your boss; give it time and it becomes a bare minimum.
What do you mean you need to visit the store? What do you mean you’ve got to cook, or wash dishes, or clean your house? If you’re in a position to read this, you know that most of those tasks haven’t been done by you in your life. It’s been your mother, your domestic help, and now Urban Company.
Staying in and letting apps do everything else for you apart from work has other knock-on effects as well. You’re isolated from your immediate community because you no longer spend time in it. You don’t know your neighbourhood grocer. You don’t know the teashop on the corner of your road. You don’t know the routine of your neighbours and you certainly don’t know where to find the best quality groceries, only the app that offers the lowest rates.
You don’t know the community you’re a part of, like it or not. Nobody knows you and you couldn’t be bothered to know them.
You’re oblivious to the roads around you falling into abject disrepair, trapped as you are in the thrill of the notification.
All this time, you’ve got your work to keep you company. There’s always a deadline. Everything else can wait.
This is now your routine.
When your life is only dominated by screens, you lose the ability to wonder whether things could be better. You stop pondering the state of your surroundings and neighbourhood since now apps can take care of the dirty work for you. You stop thinking about the poison you’re breathing or the attack on your rights as a human. Or the routine attacks on other members of your society. You lose empathy for anyone not you.
You don’t have the time for it because work awaits, a meeting needs to be accepted, a presentation has to be delivered, a dashboard needs to be made.
There’s always the hustle and the fear of being left behind, every moment spent away from work is a wasted moment. If you’re not grinding the midnight hour you’re ngmi.
This can’t be it, you know. This can’t be the “human peak” that technology has been promising us for decades long past.
Your mind is no longer allowed to wonder and I can’t help but think you’re not entirely blameless in this.
And now AI’s been unleashed on us, further entrenching us in work, and only the work, because you don’t have the luxury of time.
Nobody says it better than Kurt Vonnegut here:
When Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope] Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.
