Rating: ★★★★★

Poetry

Date: June 2, 2026

Written by a 24-year-old  in Bengaluru, India, who juggles multiple part-time jobs, including working as a delivery driver for an app-based platform, while pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. He prefers to remain anonymous for now, saying that once he “makes it,” he will return to claim this piece as his own. This is his first attempt at writing about his work, his dreams, and the life in between.

Illustration : Big Fat Bao

I refresh the app at 7 AM

waiting

for the ping

that decides

if I eat today.

Another address

I will never live at.

Helmet on.

Engine on.

Go.

I have seen the insides of buildings

I will never be invited into

cold marble floors,

doors that close

just as I turn around.

I hand over the bag.

They take it

without looking up.

Five stars, I think.

Please.

Five stars means tomorrow.

★★★★★

My mother’s shift starts at 8.

Needle. Thread. Ten hours.

Back curved over crimson and gold

wedding blouses she embroiders so carefully

Colours widowhood took from her.

★★★★★

We are the circulatory system of a city

that doesn’t know our names.

★★★★★

At night I watch reels

the guy who made a crore at twenty-three,

the kid my age riding a Ducati

the founder at his standing desk

like burnout is something you can afford.

I want that.

I want it badly.

I want it the way you want things

when you’ve been taught

wanting is embarrassing.

I want Nikes

not the cheap ones in Shivaji Nagar,

the real ones,

clean, untouched, mine.

I want a morning

where no alarm

decides who I am.

I want to call her and say,

Amma, rest.

I got it.

But mostly, honestly,

I want out.

Out of the two-hundred-rupee life.

Out of the math that never adds up.

Out of being grateful

for things

I should simply have.

★★★★★

Some days I do three gigs before noon,

before I run to my college class.

Swiggy run to Koramangala.

Wedding hall setup in Jayanagar

Cleaning bikes in a repair shop.

I exist

in the gaps

between other people’s convenience.

And I started

fifty steps behind.

No father to call

when rent is due.

No cushion.

No contact.

No shortcut.

No debt

that someone else will quietly clear.

Just her salary.

And the two hundred rupees

I fold

like it’s two thousand

set aside,

untouched,

a door

I am building

from the inside.

★★★★★

Someday

I’ll tell this story

from a room with cold marble floors,

and they’ll call it inspiration

call it resilience.

But tonight

It's just Tuesday.

The two hundred rupees is folded.

The app is open.

The city is waiting.

And I am already gone.