A routine bike-taxi ride through Bengaluru traffic took an unexpected turn when a woman realised her rider was not a full-time gig worker, but an Infosys employee trying out the job in his spare time. The encounter was shared by Bengaluru resident Chaarmika Nagalla in a LinkedIn post that went viral in April 2025. According to her account, the rider worked in Infosys’ contract management team and had decided to spend his weekends and early mornings riding a bike taxi rather than simply scrolling through social media. Scroll down to read more..
The ride began with an unusual question
Nagalla had been experimenting with bike taxis to get through Bengaluru’s notoriously congested roads and reach work quickly. But when her rider arrived, his first words immediately caught her attention. “Am I audible?”, It sounded less like something a bike-taxi rider would say and more like a line from a corporate video call.The unusually formal greeting made Nagalla curious. She began talking to him during the ride and soon discovered that this was actually his first day working as a bike-taxi rider.There was another surprise waiting. He had a regular corporate job.
Her rider worked at Infosys
The man told Nagalla that he was a full-time employee at Infosys, working in its contract management team. Rather than spending his free time at home, he had decided to experiment with gig work during weekends and early mornings.His motivation, according to Nagalla’s account, was twofold: he wanted to make some additional income and, as he put it, be productive rather than spend his spare time “doom-scrolling” through reels. The contrast amused Nagalla.Here was someone with a conventional corporate job, complete with meetings and professional communication, now navigating Bengaluru’s roads as a bike-taxi rider before or after office hours.
‘Why not earn some extra money?’
For many people, a second job is associated with financial necessity. Nagalla’s encounter offered a different explanation. The rider appeared to view the bike-taxi work as a productive way to use time that would otherwise have been spent passively consuming content online.His decision also reflected a broader shift in how some urban professionals are approaching their free hours. Instead of treating weekends purely as downtime, some are using them to experiment with side gigs, earn additional income, meet people or simply get out of their usual routine. The rider’s story resonated precisely because it did not fit the stereotypical image of someone working in the gig economy.
And then it happened again
What made Nagalla’s experience even more interesting was that she encountered another corporate professional in a similar situation almost immediately afterwards. The following day, she took an Uber bike ride home. The rider arrived on a premium motorcycle and appeared to be well equipped for the ride.Naturally, she asked him about his work. He told her that he worked at a B2B event management company. But his reason for doing bike rides was different.He reportedly said that instead of simply riding home alone after work, he could complete a ride and have some company along the way. For Nagalla, the two encounters began to look less like random coincidences and more like something worth thinking about.
Is it really about money?
Nagalla’s LinkedIn post eventually moved beyond the unusual discovery of corporate employees doing gig work. She raised a more uncomfortable question: what if some people are not working these extra jobs only for money? In her post, she wondered whether loneliness could be one of the reasons people were looking for these unexpected forms of interaction.The question struck a chord online. Some people praised the employees for using their spare time constructively and finding new ways to earn or stay active. Others questioned whether society was beginning to label loneliness and the need for human connection as simply another form of “hustling.”
Bengaluru’s gig economy is changing
The story also reflects something increasingly visible in India’s large cities: the boundaries between a person’s main profession and their side work are becoming less rigid. A software professional can spend the week working on contracts, projects or meetings and then spend a Saturday morning navigating city traffic for a bike-taxi platform. For some, it can be about extra income. For others, it can be about staying occupied, meeting people or trying something completely different.But Nagalla’s experience raises a bigger question about modern urban life. People can have demanding careers, hundreds of professional contacts and thousands of followers online, yet still find themselves searching for simple human interaction.
A bike ride that became a bigger conversation
What began as a way for Nagalla to avoid Bengaluru traffic ended up making her think about how people spend their lives outside work. Her first rider had a corporate job at Infosys. His second job was navigating the city’s roads.Another rider she met worked in event management and appeared to value the company of a passenger as much as the ride itself. Neither encounter fits neatly into the usual story of gig work.And perhaps that is exactly why the experience stayed with Nagalla. A simple bike ride to work had unexpectedly revealed something about the people behind the city’s corporate workforce, that sometimes, when the laptop closes and the office day ends, people are looking for more than money. They may simply be looking for something to do, someone to talk to, or a reason not to spend another weekend scrolling alone.
