February 19, 2025

An Almost Uneventful Day

Yesterday I woke up not nearly as tired as I thought I would be after the long weekend, but by the end of the 1 hour car ride to Rise Bionics I was successfully almost asleep. After we arrived we went over to our usual spot with Geetha and Balagi, the rise bionics administrative team, and settled in to what was shaping up to be a very underwhelming Tuesday. The only exciting and new thing I did was order a classic cold coffee from Cafe Coffee Day because I knew I would not survive the rest of the day without it.

Over all yesterday was a slow day. We just worked at our computers and thought, “Yup this is my day” until about 4:40pm when Arun showed up and saved us! None of us were upset when he brought us down to the basement workshop and told us to work on the sitting/standing chairs they provide for children. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone more excited to hold a drill than Simon. The next hour went quickly as Simon drilled the guide holes and Rohan and I filed the imperfections from manufacturing off the sides of the chair. And we thought that would be the most exciting part of the day.

But then we got in the uber to come home. All was normal, we did our classic beginning of the uber chit-chat. If Simon had to move out of Washington he would move to Oregon or California and Rohan would move to North Carolina or New Mexico. And then just as we are discussing other possible states our uber almost hits an auto. Now, as we all know it’s very common to almost get into a crash here in Bangalore. Normally a few words are loudly exchanged in a different language and then someone drives away. All good.

But yesterday for whatever reason we were caught between 2 angry drivers. At first, all was normal, the auto driver was sitting in his seat yelling, our driver was sitting in his seat yelling, and Simon was stuck in the middle because he sat in the front. Then all of a sudden the auto driver gets out and marches up to Simon’s window to put his fist inside the car. At this point I’m concerned. Words are still being exchanged, loudly, and obviously in a different language and then boom. The auto driver reaches across Simon and grabs our driver’s phone and cord. Somehow Simon, who’s stuck in the middle, manages to grab our driver’s phone but unfortunately the angry auto driver made it away with the cord. A few more words were said and we drove away. Immediately we started to debrief because for us an incident like that is not normal. But our uber driver must be used to it because he kind of laughed at us and asked “first time?”

So this is everyone’s reminder that even when you’re tired, having a slow day, and just trying to yap in the car ride home. Bangalore will still be Bangalore, and all the things we see and experience will be great stories to tell after we leave.

By,
Kalli