S for Small World

It was another Uber day today, and I was rushing for a meeting to the far north of the city. Bad time estimations, delay in connectivity, overall Murphy was flapping his ugly wings all over me. Mentally preparing for a difficult conversation with the cabbie, I called him once the booking went through. He, surprisingly, seemed to have his wits about himself – the first in a week filled with a string of clueless drivers who didn’t turn up at the doorstep – and reached in exactly 4 minutes as he predicted. I got in and launched into a long list of instructions to get us out of this area, because the average Uber driver has just landed from Mars and doesn’t really understand all this complexity of roads and U-turns and speed lanes and slow lanes. Surprise again. This guy seemed to have everything under control. I just named the area I wanted to get to, mentioning on a side note how delayed I was for a 10 am meeting, and got onto a long telephonic conversation.

In 20 minutes, we were nearing our destination and I was done with my phone call. Now, I told him the office complex I wanted to go to, and he nodded vigorously, also asking me whether I was going to Company XYZ. I laughed and said, “Oh! Not XYZ this time.” He was curious to know whether I work for XYZ, and I said, “I used to, you know. But, in their other office, not this one.” He got all excited and started talking about how he used to drive for the CEO of XYZ, and for some other big shots in the financial world.

Whoa! This is déjà vu, my mind alerted me. I know this guy, I know this guy. Then, I told him, “Hey! Weren’t you driving a rented black and yellow cab a few months back? I was your passenger back from my XYZ office and you dropped me home. And we were discussing how you can make more money by becoming an Uber / Ola driver.” “Yes, yes, yes. I got this car 8 days back and enrolled on Uber. It is going well so far.”

And then, we engaged in some small talk on how small a world it is, wished each other a nice day, and parted ways happy.

This morning, I had spent some confused minutes wondering what I would write on S. Stink? Smell? Stupidity? And now, I am putting my feet up, taking it easy, having a break, and only wondering whether I should name this post “Serendipity” or “Small World”.

Small world sounds better, for isn’t that the most powerful form of the world!

P. S. This post is the nineteenth in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April.