Coming from Norway, very much a do-it-yourself kind of country, I used to think that home delivery in the US was a nice break. I didn’t use it all that often, but on cold, rainy nights it made life a little easier. On one occasion I even ordered groceries to my house, but wasn’t overly impressed.
A fairly unrelated photo of us delivering mattresses and a broom to our house all by ourselves
Home delivery in India, on the other hand, is nothing short of amazing (if somewhat slow and unpredictable at times). Restaurant delivery from a hundred restaurants within a 3 kilometer radius is convenient. So is the fact that the corner store will deliver our eggs and milk for free, and that a range of businesses providing organic produce and grains have a la carte online shops with daily (and often free) delivery, or weekly deliveries of up to 10 kg of surprise produce for $10. The water guy delivers 20 liter bottles of drinking water to our house every time we run out. Pharmacies will bring medicines home to us, and even draw our blood as we relax on the sofa. I can get my back snapped back into place by the mobile chiropractor. But the real life changing home delivery service, the one that blew Mr Cyriac’s mind is the one we discovered at a friends house on Saturday: the beer shop delivers! For free! Having a party and out of beer? No need to worry, the beer man will hop on his bike and come to your rescue. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it was amazing, right?
The last in a chain of home delivery events came yesterday as we were sitting in our living room, slowly realizing that the Delhi dust is taking over our floors and most of our time. A friendly looking lady rings our doorbell, wondering if perhaps we were looking for some househelp since we’re new to the building? Well yes, we are, thank you very much for asking.
Now we just need someone to show up at our door with a couple of bed sheets, some cushions and a bedframe.
Delhi Days 