High spirited laughter filled Rangarajan’s living room on the cold January night. He had his usual fortnightly family chat call on skype with his parents and siblings. Rangarajan initiated the call from Canada, it was 9.00 pm for him, his parents joined from Chennai with their morning filter ‘kaapi’, his younger brother from Texas with his dinner plate and his twin from Japan sitting by the side of her balcony watering plants in the morning. The time of the day did not matter when they were together on the call. Rangarajan and his sibling visited their parents in July and spent a good two months reliving their childhood and creating new memories for future. This trip was going to be special as the twins were ready to celebrate their 50th birthday together. While they were making plans about their trip to India, they also talked about the rising cases and how they may have a travel ban. Sabapathy (Rangarajan’s father) was sure that nothing would withstand the tropical heat of Chennai and reassured to everyone that the trip will happen. Little did they imagine that in the next two years skype, zoom, google meet, Microsoft teams will be their destinations to create new memories. With every transaction digital and no contact deliveries, they had all become mere moving images through the screen.
Sabapathy and Annapoorni had been confined to the four walls and considering they were aged, Rangarajan and siblings decided to give them the comfort of all services rendered at home. Annapoorni was more tech savvy of the two, she learnt to juggle between multiple apps her children and other relatives suggested. She had almost 10 apps each one for every service she availed. Sabapathy was more of the ‘in-person’ kind, he was meticulous and maintained bills and all other documents carefully. He had the habit of writing everything in his diary- order milk packet, pay phone bill, collect curtains from dry clean, call AC service. All of this would then be translated into the digital apps by Annapoorni. When Sabapathy was out in the field he would plan his route in such a manner that he would complete all tasks on his list and return home proud about himself. He could manage all of his work by himself and take care of assistance that his sons and daughter needed, especially things like property maintenance, tax payment etc. He wished there was someone who planned everything the way he did or atleast translated his plans into actions. He was sure that he would find his ‘Jee-boomba’ someday. He mentioned his wish on the family calls so many times that every call would begin with the ‘finding Jee-boomba’ factor.
A few days later, it was their routine fortnightly family call, Rangarajan asked his mother Annapoorni to look for OK BOSS, he mentioned that that personal assistant app was an all-in-one service. The all enthusiastic Annapoorni began scrolling on her phone and then suddenly disappeared from the call for a while. Sabapathy was enjoying the gibberish story narration of his grandchildren when Annapoorni returned to the call, beaming. Looking at her expression everyone wanted to know the reason. She announced that Sabapathy’s ‘Jee boomba’ was discovered! She told the family how with one call to OK Boss, she had assigned them 5 different tasks at one go. This was impossible on any other app, she had used. While the family call was in progress, an OK BOSS tasker arrived at their residence and collected instructions. By the end of the day, Annapoorni sent the family a complete update on tasks that were completed. She told them that OK Boss was not just an errand service for people in Chennai, it also provided a whole band of services to the NRI. OK Boss is truly the ‘Jee-Boomba’ Sabapathy was looking for!
