Respected Sir/Madam,

I am sincerely hoping that you have completely forgotten about me. I had last written to your esteemed newspaper over two years ago. I am hoping, the staff in your editorial desk would have changed entirely in the last two years. On a few occasions , I had the urge to write to you, but I resisted the urge, remembering my promise that I will not write to you.

But now something big is happening in our society. As a concerned reader, I want to use the pages of your newspaper to speak up and bring to the notice of the highest authorities. After E-Commerce, M-Commerce, now there is a new fad , which is being called Q-Commerce... I recently learnt that Q-Commerce stands for Quick Commerce.

There are many fads that keep coming and passes by without touching a retired bank employee like me. But now this Quick Commerce seems to be entering my household also. We have to nip it in the bud.

Here is a conversation I had with my wife Mangalam this morning .

Mangalam ( MB, in short) : Old man, Do you have Blinkit on your mobile phone ?

J Bhoothalingam ( JB, in short) : No. What is that ?

MB : Don't you know. It is the latest craze... Everyone is ordering stuff through Blinkit . Can you download the app from the Play store on your phone . My mobile has some memory problem.

JB : You know me well.. I like to keep my mobile phone clean...No mannangkatti apps like Blinkit, Drinkit, Sinkit.. What is the urgency to download the app just now ?

MB: In ladies club, everyone is saying when they need something urgently they are ordering it on one of these Q-Commerce sites like Blinkit or Zepto.. It seems they deliver things very quickly in 10-15 minutes.

JB : So, what is it that you want that has to be delivered so quickly ?.

MB : As I am making the sambar for lunch , I see we have run out of perungayam (asafoetida, a condiment ) ... We can order it on Blinkit and it will come in good time.

JB : What will happen if you do not put perungayam in the sambar once ? Remember you forgot to totally add salt in the sambar the other day and I did not even notice it, until I had already had half the sambar sadam. I won't miss the perungayam either.

MB: You only need some occasion to point my mistakes. I need perungayam now !

JB : Did you not order Perungayam in our monthly grocery list ? You could have told me in the morning also , I could have picked it up while returning from my morning walk from Murugan stores.

MB : I had bought it. But they got lumpy in the untimely rains last week.

JB : OK.. Let me call up Murugan Stores and ask him if he can deliver it. ( JB calls up Murugan stores)

MB : What did he say ?

JB: He says he cannot send his errand boy just for one item..Anyway his errand boy has gone out to the wholesale market to buy some stuff.

MB : What is your problem with Blinkit ? Old man, this is the new trend.. We cannot be stuck in our old ways.

JB : This may be OK for young working people who are very busy..They have no time to plan anything and do even their regular shopping...For them everything is on their mobile phone... If they can save some time from their routines, they will spend more time on their leisure... It is not for old people like us.

MB : Yeah. that is right !.. You are not going to have a sudden burst of passion at this age to order stuff from the neighbourhood pharmacy to be delivered in 10 minutes .

JB : Mangalam ! Let us not get there...I am not going to use this app .. For a 50 Rs perungayam, these apps will charge 50 Rs delivery charge... For young people, who pay through PhonePe on their phone without seeing the bill, it may not matter.. But for a pensioner, every rupee matters.

MB : No perungayam..No lunch today..

JB: OK... No Blinkit . I will walk over to Murugan stores ... I will chat with the shopkeeper to find out how these new apps like Blinkit are hurting his business...The shops like Murugan have been there for so long... Do you want anything else ?

MB : Yes... Get me a new mobile phone, I want to download Blinkit and other apps in it.

Through your newspaper, I want to convey to the higher authorities that they should ban all these Q-Commerce apps like BlinkIt.. What purpose are they really serving ? They are making our people lazy and spoilt. Our people will spend even more time on their smart phones and get fat . Then they will join a gym, to bring down their weight. There also instead of doing exercises, they will be taking selfies in their latest track suits with a treadmill in the background. We do not need this in India... We have enough people with a lot of time on their hands to buy all the basic needs. We are Indians, we can adjust if we do not have something.

Yours in exasperation,

J. Bhoothalingam