A story of an Indian Entrepreneur that leaves you Inspired

I met this guy in December 2013 on my way back to Pune from Mumbai Airport. I had my American friend with me who was in India on a vacation. While driving to Pune, I could see that the driver was driving sensibly. Not too fast, not too slow and minding his own business. I felt his driving skills were good.

My friend was planning to go back two weeks later and had to go to Mumbai airport. Upon reaching Pune, I asked the driver if he would be okay to drop my friend at airport. He nodded positively and asked me to call him a day before. I called him on that day to make sure he is coming to pick my friend up. He showed up on time and dropped my friend at the airport. He even called me from the airport to tell me that he has just dropped my friend and asked me to talk to my friend on his phone as my friend did not have his phone with him. I was impressed with all this that I decided to hire him for my work trips whenever required.

I keep traveling between Pune and Mumbai for work. Every time I just call him and tell him the time I am planning to leave. There has never been a single time that this guy has been late for my pick up. During one of our drives to Mumbai he asked me if I can teach him how to use smartphone. I agreed and showed him some basics on his newly purchased cellphone.

Two weeks later he asked me, "What is Facebook?"

I looked at him quite surprised and explained him what Facebook is. He asked me to create his account and teach him how to use Facebook. I happily showed him the basics of using Facebook like uploading pictures, liking a picture of someone, adding people as friend etc. He slowly got used to it and is now a Pro at using Facebook.

The next time I met him he asked me about Ola, Uber and how do they work? He asked me about my opinion of him doing business with Uber and Ola.

A Smiling Driver - Narendra Patil

I told him about how these cabs work and encouraged him to go ahead. He was already running his business of renting his sedan for business trips, pleasure trips. He was making decent earnings from it. But then there used to be days when he used to be at home because of no trips. Now there was no question of being at home for this reason. Whenever he is at home he switches on his Uber phone and works for the entire day. That helped him get some extra earnings. He was very happy.

Then came the day when he asked me about a housing scheme near Pune. I looked at brochure and told him it looks good. Out of curiosity I asked for whom is he looking at an apartment. He answered that he is planning to buy a one bedroom apartment. I was happy to hear that and asked him to go ahead. On the day when he booked his apartment, the glow and happiness on his face was visible. I congratulated him and told him that I am really proud of him.

I love listening to Tamil and Telugu songs. During one of our trips to Mumbai he handed me a pen drive and asked me to copy some good Tamil songs in it. I asked him why is he interested in Tamil songs suddenly? He said, I do get some South Indian customers once in a while. If I play these songs when they hire my car, they will feel good about it. I just smiled and gave him some songs from my collection of Tamil songs.

This guy also understands the importance of buying a medical insurance and has purchased one for him and his family. He also encourages his fellow drivers to do the same and tries to convince them the importance of having health insurance.

He still drives me to and from Mumbai whenever required and thanks me for my lessons of using smartphone to him. Everyone in my family knows him and he knows them very well.

To me he is a successful entrepreneur.

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Aditya Gund

About Author 
Aditya Gund is an active participant of question and answers site Quora, his interesting take on variety of topics makes his posts stand out from the crowd.
He blogs at www.aditya-gund.blogspot.in  in Marathi Language. 
You can reach him on Quora to know more about him.

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About Lets Think

An Electronics Engineer by education, a part-time blogger by passion. He loves everything about technology, hence he writes about it. Interest includes Technology, Startups and Mobile Applications.