Uber Stories -2

Last Saturday afternoon I call for Uber to get a ride from Penn Station in Manhattan to my apartment in Queens. It is 25-30 minutes ride and I usual spend the time chatting with the driver. Every driver has an interesting story to tell and the part of the world they come from.

This one was from Pakistan. After a bit of small talk, he tells me that he is from a place near Lahore in Pakistan. I thought he is like rest of the immigrants living with his family in Queens and plying taxi in Manhattan to make a living. Nope. He works 4-6 months driving Uber and then goes back to his family in Pakistan to live for 2 months and then comes back to drive Uber again. So travels back and forth between US and Pakistan twice or thrice a year.

His expenses are like this:

• He doesn't own a car. He rents it when he is in US and drives it for Uber. He pays $500/month rental on the car. 
• Apartment expense $500-600/month
• Not sure how much on gas/petrol
• Eats out in restaurant and so does not cook. Dinning out $200/month
• Buys his cloths and stuff in Pakistan. Does not take gifts from US
• He saves about $2-3k/month after taxes and sending money home. After saving about $10k in savings he heads for home in Pakistan.

He has four kids from 9 months old to 14 years old. His brothers and mother live with his family. They are not well to do. He holds American passport but never brought his family to US. His wife doesn't want to come because she is an orthodox muslim in a burqa all the time. He also wants his kids to learn Islam and muslim way of life in Pakistan. He hopes to bring his children for higher education to US. They attend english medium schools in Pakistan.

I asked how he got his US citizenship. He was vague about it. He claims he was in US in early 1990s driving cab in Manhattan and got his green card and then the citizenship in lottery or something. 

This is a growing trend among many skilled and unskilled people around the world. This is called on-demand economy. Companies like Uber are making it possible for people who have spare time and a vehicle to make a quick buck and then withdraw into their private life. Most Uber drivers in non-metro areas in US are well educated and well to do who wants to make few bucks during their idle time and spend taking their wife or girl friend out for a good dinner. Their income is taxed. This on-demand services are allowing people with spare time to do tasks for others like running errands (taskrabbit.com), doing groceries/shopping.

This growing trend will change the way we will work and live. In my previous blogs I showed how taxi drivers in India are able to find more clients, make more money and became entrepreneurial using Uber. The Indian driver I wrote about lifted his monthly salary from Rs 5-6k to Rs 20k. That is a four fold increase. He is now thinking of buying cars and use them for Uber. He hates Meeru with whom he used work for before.

With the rise of Uber and Lyft (Uber's competition), I am even considering not to replace my aging car. Once my kids move out of the house, it is best to move to urban area with good public transportation and use Uber kind of services when necessary rather than spend tons buying a car, maintaining it and paying insurance.

Our current model of having to work full time, monthly fixed salary, and limited vacation/spare time, does not give us the flexibility to pursue our interests. Between 2006 and 2011 I pursued the same model of basing my family in India and I traveling back to US for business/work. Professional life is good US but not personal life. Life is in India, in spite of traffic, pollution, roads, and people is still relaxing. I could pick many hobbies when in India such as sketching, water color painting, chess. I started to play golf, travel around, catchup with India movies, music, friends, and books. I had art tutors come to my house and give me one-on-one classes. Festivals in India is true festivals. It is not something you celebrate on a weekend. The same with birthdays. I can enjoy the music concerts in India.

Here is a picture of cricket game in progress in the township I live.

Life in US has its own pluses - infrastructure, professional satisfaction, recreational facilities, intellectual growth,  cultural and intellectual exposure - good radio, TV programs (PBS), concerts, museums, libraries, books, universities, conversations, debates. But life in US is expensive - the insurances (car, house,flood, umbrella, health, ...), education, travel, hobbies, housing, car expenses. So to live in US one has to make a decent salary and for a decent salary one has to have a job, and to have such a job you have to stress yourself out that you don't have to in India.

So how is it possible to get the best of both worlds? My pakistani Uber driver figured it out. Live in both countries and get a piece of both worlds. How? Here is how I did it for last 8 years.

My family was in India living in Hyderabad. India gave me a stable base, decent education for my kids, a society to keep an eye on the children, gave them the Indian roots, was at home for every major festivals, visited relatives and childhood friends regularly. Attended numerous weddings.

Expenses in India are minimal. Excluding your housing and school fees, it costs about Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100k) per month to have the top 1% of the population life style in India. For that expense you can maintain two cars, a driver, a live-in maid, eat twice or more a month in the best restaurants in town, travel to visit parents, host parties, take care of NRIs who visit, etc.

I would travel to US for professional work. I had a car but there is no need for one if you live in a metro places like New York (It is 3 months since I touched my car as I live in New York now). I use Uber a lot or public transportation. Don't rent an apartment. For staying for few days using airbnb, for longer-term rentals you have sulekha.com. I always found very good apartments for few months.

I would travel to India every 3 to 4 months. Many times I travel to India to work remotely from India. Even if I don't, the expenses I don't have to pay for in US, pays for my plane ticket which is about $800-1200 round trip when traveling from the coast during off season. The per-mile cost is far less than traveling between the coasts in US. 

This is exactly what this Pakistani Uber driver is doing and I were doing for last few years. When in India, I enjoy every minute of it. When back in US, I enjoy my professional, cultural, and intellectual life. I was able to do this because my kids preferred to stay in India while in school and I have a supportive wife.  I don't think everybody can pull this off. Had it not for my children college education, I would have continued this Uber style arrangement.

In fact most of the NRIs living in my gated community in India do the same. Wife and kids stay put in India while husbands work overseas and show up every few months. Kids go to the best schools and have private tutors coming to home to help them with academics. Kids finish high school in India, write SATs and come back to US for college education. Everybody is happy. Wives are the most happiest ones because they don't have their husbands around to nag them. I call those wives "The Merry Wives of Hill County" (Hill county is the name of the gated community I live in) and the husbands "The Uber husbands".

Uber Stories - 1

Few days back, I took Uber to get to Penn Station to catch Amtrak. The car showed up and the driver name was Philip. I thought it would be non-south Asian given that I mostly come across Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian Uber drivers in NYC. I find the driver Indian.

After getting into the car he asks me if I am Indian and I say yes. I ask him where he is from. He tells me he is from Delhi, immigrated an year back, was working in gas station before introduced to Uber by friends few weeks back and now he is driving Uber full time. He tells me that he drove for embassies in Delhi. I ask him how he came to US. He tells me that he is world famous and that is why he is here in US !!!

Phillip tells me he was famous from the famous US-Indian diplomatic tussle that happened in 2013 that ruffled Indo-US relationships. Devyani Khobrogade was an Indian diplomat who was arrested and alleged strip searched by the police in US on charges that she was not paying the minimum wages to the maid that she brought from India. The maid, Sangeeta Richard, claimed that she was paid the equivalent of $573.07 a month, which would work out to about $3.31 an hour based on a 40-hour workweek. She claimed that she typically worked 90 to 100 hours a week, which would work out to only $1.32 to $1.46 an hour. Devyani and her father fought this case both in US and in India and on the Indian streets. Indian government in turn harassed US diplomat wives working without proper paper work in local embassy school. Eventually Devyani was allowed to leave US on diplomate visa.

Phillip is husband of the maid/nanny, Sangeeta Richard. They have two grown up children who are now 19 and 21 years and attending local university. Phillip tells me that he was whisked out of India with only two days notice. He sold his car and house and come to US with $15k. He was in contact with US officials after his wife told about being harrassed by Devyani. They gave him asylum and brought him out of India. 

I was asking the details of the case when he told me that it is ver possible Sangeeta was lying and may be exploiting the situation. I was taken aback. 

Once Richard reached US, he had a bigger shock. He moved in with his wife and kids. Few weeks later, he went to social security office to apply for SS number and when he returned, the room was empty. His wife left with the kids along with his $15k cash and furniture. When he reached her over the phone, she told him that she has moved in with the ex-driver of Devyani along with her children.  He threatened to go to police if he doesn't stop calling her. 

Phillip claims that his wife had been having an affair with the driver she was working in US and he was in India. He believe she was instigated by the driver to file a complaint about Devyani to exploit the situation. He claims that he was not aware of these until he came to US. He claims Sangeeta made the wild claims only to stay back in US. 

He now lives in a basement in Queens in NYC sharing it with a Bangaldeshi driver. He lost touch with his family and friends in India. Claims that he has about 420 arrest warrants against him in India, penniless in US, without children and his life is devastated. His sister and family members in India continue to get harrassed by Devyani's father who is now a politician and member of parliament. 

Phillip contacted the US authorities to explain the situation and they don't want to do anything with his domestic issues. I was intrigued. That evening I browsed about this case and looked for off-the-road articles about the inside scoop. There are few of them and here are few tidbits:

• Sangeeta requested to work part-time few months after she started to work for Devyani in NYC. Permission denied.
• Sangeeta disappears. Devyani could not file missing-person report with NYC police. Police requests kith-and-kin to file it. Sangeet's husband refuses to file one from India.
• Devyani claims getting a call from a lady blackmailing about overworking her maid and asking her to change Sangeeta's visa to allow her to terminate her work and work in US. Devyani reports this to the police in NYC
• Philip non-cooperative in India. Devyani files a FIR against Philip in India.
• Philip whisked out of India by US and given asylum visa. Few days after he reaches US, Devyani was arrested and the diplomatic blowup happens.  
• Sangeeta's mother-in-law (Agnes) and father-in-law (Phillip's parents) worked with embassies in Delhi and that could be the reason how Sangeeta was able to land up as maid with Devyani. One article quoted Agnes saying that her daughter-in-law always wanted to go abroad to work. 

Few days after landing in US, Sangeeta leaves Philip with her children for another man. Philip claims that the daughter knew about this and refuses to return to the father and that Sangeeta wants Philip to take their son instead. Philip wanted both the children.

Philip now rents and lives in a room in a basement somewhere in Queens, makes a living driving Uber taxi. He claims that he was duped by his wife into thinking that she was being exploited by Devyani and now he says that may not be the case. He has no connection with India. He keeps in touch with his sister. No mention about his parents. Says he is not in touch with friends in India. He cannot return to India and he is nobody in US and alone. Looks like he bit more than he can chew. 

Uber Experience: India

Uber has recently been in news in India and around the world. A woman passenger was allegedly raped by a Uber driver in Delhi and the fallout was very bad.

I have used Uber for some time in US and I believe it is a revolutionary service that impacts most of us who travel a bit. The other one is of course AirBnb. Uber freed me from the seedy taxi services we see in urban areas in US, overpriced, seedy service. I sometimes wonder if women ever use old taxi services given its seedy nature. Hailing a cab is a nightmare in Manhattan. With taxi medallions costing over a $1 milion USD the cab costs having been going up in NYC.

Enter Uber. It made my life easy to get reasonably priced taxi service in most parts of the world. Having lived in Austin and now in New York City, Uber and other taxi services are god sent. You can call them anytime, from almost anywhere in US.

If you are not familiar with Uber, here is how it works. You can be Uber driver or a Uber passenger.

As Uber passenger, you download the app on your smartphone. You store your credit card info and sign up at Uber website. Anytime you want a taxi, you turn on the app on the phone, specify where you want to be picked and the destination. Your request is routed to few Uber drivers in your vicinity. Once your request is picked by one of the Uber driver, the driver drives his car to your location to pick you. Once you are dropped up at your destination there is nothing you have to do. You will be charged automatically on your credit card.

When you sign up for Uber as a driver, they do a background check about you (criminal, driving history, etc). Once selected you are given some training (at least in India) on how to communicate with customers, how to use Uber app on iPhone, etc. Then they give you an iPhone with their app on it at no price in India but I heard they charge a monthly rent of $10/month in US. All communications are done through this iPhone. When the driver decides to ply his car, he will turn on Uber's phone and makes himself available. Based on the driver's location, taxi ride requests are routed to him. If he decides to take it, he will respond and then connected to the customer. If not interested, he ignores the request. After certain number of requests are ignored Uber tries to find out why and it may reflect poorly on the driver and may eventually result in termination of contract with them.

Both the driver and the customer gets to rate each other. This gives a great incentive to behave well with each other. Once the customer finishes his/her ride, he just walks out of the cab. The actual ride cost is automatically charged to your credit card. In US, the price per mile changes dynamically with day of time and location. Greater the demand greater the price. So hailing a Uber cab around 9 PM or later from an airport costs more than hailing it in suburbs during working hours. One can watch the prices rise or fall and then hail for a cab. I see the old yellow cabs in US fading away soon with the coming of Uber or Lyft.

I signed up for Uber while living in India and never got to use it in India until recently. Few days back, with no vehicle to take me to the city in Hyderabad, India, I used Uber. There was only one Uber taxi in my neighborhood at 7 AM and it showed up on time. I was running late for a breakfast meeting and hopped into the taxi. The taxi was exceptionally clean and was running smoothly. It is my habit to get into conversation with Uber drivers. I ask how they find the service, how the service works, how it impacts their lives. Most Uber drivers I find in US are immigrants. I had two Ethiopian drivers in Austin and Pennsylvania, mostly Pakistani and west Africans drivers in New York City, a few white Americans, and one 60+ year old dignified suit wearing Greek driver in Astoria, New York.

So I started to chat with my first Indian Uber driver. His name is Srinivas, hails from nearby town, passed 12th grade and can read/write/understand English. I asked him how it works in India.

Srinivas used to be a regular taxi driver working for Meru cabs. Meru is a normal cab service that took off during last few years in India. They provide taxi cars to the drivers, charge them a daily rent, take care of the car, market the taxi service, and route the customers to their drivers from their call center. They track the cars through GPS and provide credit card charging service on the cabs itself. The drivers get to own their cabs after working for 3 years for Meru. In addition to charging a daily rental fee for the cars, Meru takes 15% of the fare while charging the customer Rs 21/km or so.

Apparently Meru reneged on the promise and did not give the cars after 3 years of services from the drivers. The drivers went on strike but could not sustain. Srinivas was decided to go on his own. He took a bank loan of about Rs 800k (8 lakhs) with Rs 3 lakhs down payment. He started using his private car as Meru cab initially and later signed up for both Uber and Ola (Indian version of Uber). Uber takes 20% of the fare and provides far more customers than Meru. To encourage more drivers, Uber gives bonuses after each week or month. The bonuses could be hefty for the drivers like Rs 5k or so. Uber provides iPhone at no cost to drivers while Meru expects its drivers to purchase the phone from them.

Srinivas claims that he gets somewhere between 4-7 rides through Uber each working day and lot more during weekends. The most popular spots are in Hi-tech area, Banjara hills area, the hotels in Banjara area, and the airport. He says that all rides from the 5 star hotels are always through Uber and never through Meru. He says that for costumers, Meru is lot expensive because it charges Rs 21/km while Uber charges Rs 13/km. There are no off-hour charges as they are in US. All Uber drivers are taxi drivers and none are private drivers like we see in US. Uber gives bonus for every passenger picked from the airport. 

Since Srinivas signed up for Uber his income shot up many folds. He claimed that when he was plying Meru cab using Meru's car he was hardly making around Rs 7-10K after all expenses. When he was able to buy his own car he is able to take home Rs 20k+/month after all expenses including mortgage payment, car servicing, fees to Meru and Uber, and gas/diesel. He maintains his car exceptionally well. It is extremely clean inside in spite of being 3 years old. He is married recently and hopes to purchase more cars and use them for Uber taxi services. He informed that Telangana government these days provides interest free loans  or provides gauranteed loans through banks to taxi drivers to purchase the vehicles.

Srinivas tells that Uber is having impact not only on the taxi services in India but also on the auto drivers. Autos charge about Rs 10/km which is not much less from Uber's price (Rs 13/km) on top of it one has to haggle a price with the autos who don't use the meter.