Dal for the broken heart

The two most important things that life can mess up for you are no food for an empty stomach and ruining a chance for a great pun.

10:45PM, I  feel a rumble in my stomach. I assume that it’s just a side effect of the enjoyable bready dairy monster that is Dominos (it was a good lunch). It takes me a bit of time to realise that it’s just my hunger sending me the equivalent of a phone call during a movie  - loud, annoying, frustrating but invariable needs attending to. 

I quickly rushed to the app that I have used the most in the last 12 months - Swiggy. Used to be Tinder but times change when you decide to settle down with your true love - food. 

Scroll, scroll, scroll and I decide to eat a little healthy. And what can be healthier than dal for the homemade vegetarian that I am (no, seriously - I am vegetarian at home). 

I place the order and get back to the memes that keep me sane in today’s mad world. (Side note - great sub reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalartmemes/)

11:15, I get a call from a very irritated man. He is very irritated about something. I’d say borderline environmentalist-at-an-Art-of-Living-event irritated. It is the delivery “executive” from Swiggy. His irritation stems from the fact that I did not call Swiggy even though my order was not confirmed. 

Um, I thought he was *from* Swiggy. 

Never mind. I mumble my apologies and tell him that I will get right down to doing his job. 

11:17, I call Swiggy to right the horrible wrongs done to their delivery “Executive”.

11:18, I am waiting for an agent to get free.

11:25, I am waiting for an agent to get free. 

11:30, All the agents must be taking a break for dinner. Guess their order was delivered. :-/

11:38, I decide to hang up. Let them enjoy their dinner. Poor delivery “executive” will hopefully get some justice with his next order.

11:45, I call Swiggy again hoping that the vegetarian Swiggy agent on a diet eventually got tired of his dal and was free to talk to me. 

11:47, I realise that there are no dieting vegetarian Swiggy agents. 

11:50, My order is suddenly confirmed according to the app. I have my doubts. The restaurant closes at 11:30. I am quite sure about this because several sites confirm it. Yet, who am I to ruin a good thing. That good thing is dal, yes, but I have lowered my standards for comfort by this time.

11:55, A new delivery “executive” is a assigned. CoolCool CoolCoolCool - midnight snack of dal it is. Yes, dal, but the rumbling is getting stronger so it’s cool. 

00:00, I call the delivery “executive” to make sure that he is not suffering any human rights violations. Hopefully he has not seen my order because he would not be happy about working at midnight to deliver a bowl of dal.

00:01, The “executive” tells me calmly that the restaurant is closed. I should call Swiggy. I am genuinely confused by now. Does *anybody* work for Swiggy or do we all just go around telling each other to call Swiggy?

00:03, I call the Swiggy call centre

00:10, The food served during dinner at the Swiggy call center must be incredible

00:15, I  tweet to them. Use strong words. Unforgivable language. Called their service disgraceful.

00:30, Somebody calls me. I guess they finished eating dinner. Wanted to ask him about the menu in their cafeteria but there is a bigger issue at hand - my dal. 

He reminds me that the delivery “executive” has confirmed with me that the restaurant is closed so he wants to check with me if he can cancel the order. I ask him to check all of the above times. He confirms all of the above times. 

I told him to do whatever he wanted with my order of dal. He canceled my order of dal.

I didn’t get any dal.

What annoyed me about the entire situation wasn’t the lack of options to reach out to Swiggy. It wasn’t the fact that my food didn’t get delivered. I understand the delivery “executives” not having the right training for situations like this. Maybe I placed the order too late. Maybe Swiggy is cutting costs at their call centres. Or maybe they are spending more at their call centres on better food for dinner for the night shift folks. All of the above is understandable. Fathomable. You live with it in a country like this. 

What annoyed me though, was that it wasn’t an order for a pizza. Or an order for a nice biryani (if you come here with your veg pulao comments, I am going to poke you (on Facebook)).  It wasn’t even an order for a nice big bowl of proper Indian noodles.Those orders may even get delivered. This was an order for a dal. 

D.A.L.

There are times when destiny will look you in the eye and tell you that you are about to be plunged into a pool of feces. In a time like that, you will feel like you are sinking. Sinking completely. And in a time like that when you reach out to grab on to some form of help or comfort, remember, you won’t even get dal.

Or get to call the person bringing you the food your dal-ivery executive.