The kind of boyfriend Flipkart’d make

Two days ago, while link hopping on my 2005 Macbook that’s starting to give up on its first love, I stumbled upon the movie trailer of ‘One Day’. As the movie voice dramatically narrated the ebb and flow of a forty year old almost non-existent relationship between Dexter & Emma, I clung on to the last five seconds of the trailer. Adapted from David Nicholls’ book. It is difficult to kill an archaic habit of being presumptuous and so I immediately concluded that the book must be better than the movie. 

I am an ad geek. And if I like your ad, I buy your baby. That’s just who I am. A believer in marketing whore-ism. Flipkart’s recent ads with the eight year olds voicing 38 year olds have been able to make me smile. Again, if your 30 second story makes me smile, I make an effort of going to the wwws and looking you up. And then if things go golden, then you and I, we’re in this for life, hon. 

I searched for the book, I hit the first one that showed up, I hit buy and got strangely excited about this impulse adoption. Who says online shopping lacks the experience of the real kind? I get to sit in my beautifully designed apartment, under an orange light that screams ‘Paris’ (fine, I may be getting ahead of myself here) and I get to avoid sweaty aunties trying to steal my thunder and yet get what I am looking for. 

I followed the drill and went back and forth while flipkart.com kept rejecting my information. A pout emerged on my formerly smile decorated face. I am the all-powerful-social-media-emerged-consumer who has multiple sources to post my opinions (read ‘rants’) and so, I did. I tweeted “@flipkart Tried ordering a book on the site and it kept putting me in a loop without ever taking me to the payment gateway :(“ 

Within a few seconds, @flipkart wrote to me apologizing for the temporary hiccup and requested me to try again in a couple of minutes. I did while failing again this time. Knowing that I now had an attentive audience, I took the opportunity to express my pout some more by saying “so many hiccups. tried for the 5th time and didn’t go through. Guess that book and me? not meant to be.”

Then, I moved on with life. A believer in the serendipitous and ‘universe is written’ theories, I decided that I’ll let the book come to me rather then journeying from one website to another in pursuit of ‘One day’.

Five minutes after my succesful procrastination, I got a call from Flipkart. A heavy, handsome voice apologized for the inconvenience informing me that the technical silence had been substituted with a functional flyover i.e. the payment gateway was fixed. He also let me know that Flipkart was giving me the book for free. Filling my head and fingernails with guilt, which soon followed by a huge bout of gratitude. 

I tweeted another bow and a thank you to Flipkart for the incredible and quick service. 

Today, I got my book and what made me happy was the note that came with it. 

The kind of boyfriend Flipkar’d make is the guy who’ll split the bill with you after a good meal and then open the door for you. The kinds who’ll listen and write back. The one who doesn’t push the envelope but goes the right amount of limits to let you know how he’d feel. 



6brands, Online, Service,