The Prosaic Truth Behind Vikrant Massey’s Viral Argument With Cabbie

New Delhi:

A video of Vikrant Massey engaging in a verbal altercation with a cab driver over the surge in fare created a lot of buzz on the Internet. Well, it turns out that the clip, shared on Thursday, was part of an advertisement campaign for the ride-hailing app inDrive. Vikrant has been appointed “the brand ambassador for inDrive for a year-long advertising campaign,” reported news agency PTI (more on that later). In case you missed the ad, it opens to a cab driver recording a selfie video. He says, “Mera naam Ashish hai. Mai ek cab driver hu. Maine apne passenger ko unke location pe phuncha diya hai. Aur vo paise nahi de rahe hai. Behas baazi lar rahe hai ulta. Gaali galoch kar rahe hai [My name is Ashish. I am a cab driver. I have dropped my passenger to his destination but he is not ready to pay. He is arguing with me and using foul language.]” 

Then, the driver slips to the camera and we get to see Vikrant Massey. After listening to the driver, the actor asks, “Gaali galoch kar rahe hai? Camera kyun nikal diya bhai? Dhamka rahe ho tum? Jayaz baat hi to kar rajha hu na mai? Yeh achanak se paise kaise badh gaye? Yeh nahi chalega. [Using foul language? Why are you recording this, buddy? Are you trying to threaten me? I am simply discussing the issue, right? How did the fare suddenly increase? This won’t work.]” 

The video was shared by a paparazzi page on Instagram. Check it out: 

The video is part of the ride-hailing app inDrive’s campaign titled — “Ab app ki nahi, aap ki chalegi,” the PTI report added. Talking about the campaign at an event, Vikrant Massey said, “I am looking forward to being a part of inDrive India’s campaign as their brand ambassador. I appreciate the service that inDrive provides to its riders and drivers. inDrive is fair, where instead of the app, the people decide the fare among themselves.”

inDrive Senior GTM Manager Avik Karmakar also shared his thoughts and the company’s vision. He said, “This year, our focus is to launch inDrive in 5-6 cities. We are looking at 3-fold growth in GMV, number of rides and user base this year. We have seen a 200 per cent growth in rides year-on-year. Rides are in millions in India. We are constantly growing our driver partners and focussing more to add electric vehicles in the fleet. At present, we have over 50,000 registered driver partners in metros and 15,000-20,000 drive partners in non-metros.”

On the work front, Vikrant Massey was last seen in 12th Fail. The Vidhu Vinod Chopra directorial was much-loved by fans and critics alike. Up next, Vikrant is to appear in projects such as Yaar Jigri, Sector 36, Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba, and The Sabarmati Report.