When 27-year-old Abhinav Ravindran moved to Bengaluru from Vijayawada two years ago, he was just a regular techie in the city, hustling day and night in his software testing job. Living alone in his Suddaguntepalya house, Ravindran was homesick for months. The loneliness at home, and the monotony and drudgery at work made him take an unusual 18 months after shifting to Bengaluru. The techie started driving cabs.

advertisement

Today, he wears two hats: a software engineer's by day, and a cab driver's by night. Ravindran is a registered cabbie with the Bengaluru-based autorickshaw and cab app, Namma Yatri. He does not step out every night, just a couple of nights a week. He also sticks to a fixed route—the smoothest and best-paying in Bengaluru—trips to the airport.

And Ravindran isn't the only techie doing this. Social media posts suggest that tech professionals from top IT companies have shown up as cabbies on platforms like Ola, Uber, Rapido, and Namma Yatri. While the posts suggest that techies are driving cabs at night to beat loneliness and monotony, and earn some extra bucks, the elephant in the room is the isolation of a big city that comes with the IT jobs. However, some also ferry passengers to get a high by interacting with strangers incognito. The thrill of getting away with hiding one's "true identity".

Karnataka State Auto and Taxi Federation's president, Tanveer Pasha, who is also the chief of Ola Uber Driver's and Owner's Association, told India Today Digital that he was aware of techies in Bengaluru moonlighting as cabbies.