Pizza deliverymen: despite being the pimple-pocked, gallivanting key holders to humanity’s single greatest achievement, they are routinely subjugated to levels of abuse that would leave even a Klaus Kinski fever dream seeming pale by comparison.
Whether they are blown away at knifepoint by something more closely resembling Alf than an actual human or forcibly absorbed into the essence of some sort of giant, pulsating uterus with jaws, being a pizza deliveryman is one of the most dangerous jobs out there.
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Well, get ready, Universe, because news relating to our cheesy, discus friend could leave India’s pizza men in an even more stressful position than those who deliver stateside.
Deliverymen working for an Indian franchise of Domino’s Pizza are now finding themselves delivering pies to trains passing through some of that nation’s countless and chaotic train stations. Think The Darjeeling Limited, albeit not positively dripping in vintage Louis Vuitton luggage.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the global food chain began experimenting with train deliveries back in February. Domino’s India currently delivers to more than 200 of the country’s myriad train stations, with dozens more expected to roll out over the next few months.
So, if you happen to find yourself in Jaipur or Jalandhar, Alwar or Ambala, Mathura or Muzaffarnagar, and you feel a little peckish for some pizza, feel free to ring up Domino’s. Some pitiable pizza delivery person will have to navigate the notoriously nutty train station, find the absurdly unreliable train that probably stops there for only a few minutes, find you in your seat—because you clearly gave them that information when you ordered—and delivery your steamy, cheesy pie of goodness.
Can this really happen? Apparently, yes. Although the train-pizza-delivery business is still new for Domino’s, with only 350 orders placed over the past five months, all of the pizzas were successfully delivered, except for four.
Sure, there are logistical nightmares facing your pizza delivery person. Disorganized stations, overcrowded trains, a maze of platforms, delays, chaos, filth—you name it. But that’s not stopping these industrious boys slash lords of industry and innovation.
“It’s a huge opportunity for us,” Harneet Rajpal, a senior vice president for Domino’s India, told the Journal.
Other fast-food chains—including Pizza Hut, KFC and Subway—are, according to reports, hopping on this ridiculous bandwagon and are negotiating similar arrangements with India’s railway authorities.
Does this all sound like an upside for hungry passengers and downside for pizza delivery workers?
Perhaps, until you consider that all of your fellow passengers in India can be ordering their own pizzas to be delivered to their seats too. Nothing like a seven-hour train ride through the subtropical Indian summer in an un-air-conditioned rail car with a rotting pizza that you didn’t even order to make you think twice about your love for the Italian nectar of gods.
And forget about having that truly Indian experience while traversing the countryside of the subcontinent. That Domino’s box won’t exactly be adding local color. Bye bye, chaat and chapatis: Domino’s in India serves much the same stuff as they serve here in the U.S. of A., although they seem to enjoy describing many of the pizzas as “exotic.”
But nothing is exotic anymore, right? Not if you can get a Domino’s pizza delivery on a train in India.