When Kaushik Jai Barua, a 25-year-old lawyer and musician took his mother to a religious function in Gurgaon, he would have never imagined that it would end up with his mom and him waiting for an Uber for 25 mins in the rain and subjected to verbal racial abuse. Delhi, it seems, will never be welcoming to people from NE India. Kaushik is well-known in music circles, he is a partner at QRated, a music label. He doesn’t want an apology from Uber nor does he want to undertake legal action, all he wants is that Uber teaches its drivers some basic soft skills such as courtesy to passengers which some Uber drivers sorely lack.
‘Today for the first time in my life I’ve felt like Gurgaon is truly comprised of the shittiest people on the face of this planet. I booked an #Uber from Maruti Kunj road and while my driver was on his way to my location it started raining cats and dogs- so when he called me and asked me to come out I explained to him that the walk from the shed I was in, to the main road would take us atleast 5 minutes thereby drenching both me and my mom. He constantly insisted that I come despite the rain and I even suggested the option that he start the trip so that he doesn’t waste his time and still get paid for it.
Eventually we had to give in to his demands and went to the cab completely drenched from head to toe and entered to find him complaining about how we were wasting his precious time. Mind you-we had made him wait only for a few minutes. He mocked at us for being Bengali (Im Assamese btw) because I used the word “Arey” , his exact words being “Yeh arey-rey Bangaal mein hove hain, humaare yaha nahin”. He even threatened me by telling me his adventures in the army and how we should just shut up and not complain about being completely drenched. When we asked him not to argue, he said that we were in his area and that he owns 20 cars and he’s driving one today only because his driver didn’t show up. After which when I threatened to complain he forcefully pushed us out of his car and left us in the rain in an isolated path- a place which I could only identify on my google map. It took us 25 minutes to get another Uber.
Problem is Uber doesn’t have a proper complaint mechanism in place.’
Later, this issue was addressed by Uber though. A statement from Uber Spokesperson said, ‘ We have internally reviewed the matter. Uber does not condone racism in any manner or form and we are taking immediate action to address the issue.’
