UberX-perience #1

Uber Experience # 1

Following is a pretty boring description of small actions/events that many of you have experienced -

It was my morning ride to the train station for a day-trip to meet a client.

As usual, I scheduled the Uber in advance.

I got up in the morning and got ready waited for Uber to arrive.

The Uber arrived.

I got in, said hello to the driver as per my regular habit and off we go. It’s just a 15-minute ride.

This is where it started getting interesting

The radio was playing my favorite song - Smoke On The Water. Before I knew, I started tapping my feet to the kick drum and hands took over the snare, and my head started wobbling on the groove. I casually mentioned to the driver that it is one of my top favorite songs. He burst into saying 'Oh yeah!! Same here. Anyone that starts playing guitar wants to play this starting lick' Then he mimicked the starting lick. We both laughed in agreement.

But he didn't stop there. He went on explaining to me how quite a few songs are based on the same or very similar chord progression. Whoa! Chord Progression? This guy definitely knows music and probably played guitar previously - I said to myself.

We both exchanged our views on the 70s-80s rock. I told him my Rock Band story back in those days in India. He probably didn't believe that rock music was very famous in the urban scene then but we continued talking about the sound, the uniqueness of music in the 60s, 70s, etc.

Suddenly he asked me whether I watched the documentary The Wrecking Crew on Hulu. I had no idea about it but I said to him that I have Hulu subscription and I'll check it out. He couldn't stop praising the video and how he felt enlightened by it. Not sure why I said I will check it out.

After coming home in the evening, I couldn't remember the correct name. Was it raking, recking, waking? I did a few random searches on the Hulu app but didn't find anything. Finally, in the music documentary category, I found it! Just out of curiosity, I started watching and bam! I watched the whole 101-minute film in one shot. It was a phenomenal experience for me to know that these were the studio musicians who played for so many famous bands of the 60s!! That was the era when bands didn't arrange their music or even played on the record. It was these people who played the tunes made by Beach Boys! It was them who gave that distinct rock sound of the 60s to hundreds of songs.

After watching the film, I thought about the whole thing. It was a combination of random uber ride,  my habit of trying to talk to all Uber drivers, the Uber driver being responsive and on top of that musically educated enough to show me something that would enrich my life. What are the odds?

I feel that we gotta be open, treat all humans equally, give them comfort so that they can open up to you. If we do that sincerely, the universe will show its magic to you. The ROI on this investment is beyond wall street calculations. The return is far more than the investment if you want to call it an investment.