Food On Credit

It seems food and credit has an age old association. I remember during my childhood days how my mom used to buy the groceries for the entire month on credit. Every month she used to make payment for the previous month. Quite often she used to take me for her horrific monthly shopping on Sundays. By the time we returned home, Sunday was already gone. But after my 8th grade I think I was no longer useful enough for my mom, as far as her marketing was concerned. When I joined engineering college it didn’t take us much longer to fall into the trap of credit. The Dhaba close to our hostel and the cigarette shop used to maintain register for almost every hostel guys. No one ever had to worry about our food and fag. Every time when we used to receive money from our parents it used to vanish in the first or at max 2nd week of every month. But it was never a problem as those registers never disappointed us.

Years later the story remained the same. Even now days also as soon as I receive my salary it disappears within a couple of weeks, mostly in making the payment of previous month dues and not to mention about my dreadful EMIs. Over the years I've become very much dependent on my credit card and usually I don’t carry cash with me. Well, I really hate going to ATM’s and because of this lousy habit I had encountered some annoying moments. Many times it happened that my wallet went completely void without even a single penny. In such situation when I use to visit any ATM, the machine usually would be out of service. Ultimately I’m able to withdraw cash in the 3rd or sometimes in the 4th ATM I visit. Earlier it was ultimate painful as the distance between 2 nearest ATM’s was huge. But now days situation has changed. There are hell lots of banks and hell lot of ATM's, but only my account always remains deprived of currency.

I remember one incident that happened few years ago. It was a Friday night and I came home little late from office. It rained cats and dogs that night. At around 10:30 PM my wife started to prepare food. All of a sudden she realized that there was not enough gas left inside the cylinder to continue the flame. We had a private gas connection those days with a single cylinder. We decided to order food from outside and collected few restaurant menus piled up in some corner of the house. 

"I don’t have a single penny with me. Do you have cash with you?" I asked my wife.

"No, I don't have cash with me. Why are you such an idiot? You always carry the card with you. Why the hell you didn’t withdraw money?"

I looked outside the window and it was quite impossible to go out in such terrible rain. Ours is a residential area and the nearest restaurant was quite far. Also in those days I didn’t have any vehicle. Out of desperation I started to shake the cylinder. Obviously, it didn’t work. It was already 10:50 PM and I tried my luck to order food online. That was for the first time I tried such a thing. Well, I used to do a hell lot of things online but food was something new for me. I was so delighted when I came across some websites through which we could have ordered online food. But most of the sites had only cash on delivery option. Then I came across one which claimed to deliver food till 11:30 PM. The website specifically mentioned that they deliver food even in drastic weather condition and on top of that the option of online payment was also there. We were so hungry and we ordered hell lot of things. I was so happy, such a rainy night with completely empty stomach. I was already mesmerized with the tempting smell of the food we just ordered. At around 11:30 PM all of a sudden the phone started to ring.

"Hello Sir, you have ordered food through our website"

"Yes, I did"

"Thank you for using our website Sir. Actually we are extremely sorry to say that at this point of time we will not be able to deliver your order"

I was totally demoralized "Why, what’s the problem?"

"As you are aware Sir, it’s raining very heavily in Bangalore at the moment"

"But in your website it’s clearly mentioned that you guys deliver even in drastic weather condition"

"Yes sir, we do. But at the moment as you can see it’s raining very heavily. Your money will be credited to your account in 2 to 3 working days"

What a KLPD that was. Fortunately we had bread inside the refrigerator and had to satisfy our hunger with bread and pickle.

Well, that was several years ago and after that we ordered online food countless number of times. I always prefer to pay using my credit card rather than cash on delivery. Old habit dies hard you see. From last couple of years whenever I ordered food from outside, most of the time I did it online. The online food industry is quite matured enough these days and it's only improving day by day. It's a competitive market and such companies often come up with exciting offers. Few days back I came across FoodPanda and instantly liked it. The website looks simple yet so attractive. They are fully operational in all major Indian cities and they have tie up with a wide range of restaurants and several other forms of modern eateries.

Well, I always prefer Indian food and sometimes pizza's for a change, but my wife enjoys continental food a lot. Whenever we order food we usually end up in some kind of a controversy. With such a great food ordering website like FoodPanda, we no longer require to waste our time browsing over the internet for ordering food of our choice. Right from authentic Indian delicacies to all forms of mesmerizing Pizzas, from SubWay to RollMaal, from Chinese to various other continental foods, one can order just anything from FoodPanda. Apart from 11 AM to 11 PM Toll-free customer care service they also have a live chat in their website. My experience with FoodPanda was really awesome and I frequently visit their site to look for latest exciting offers.