Mumbai has four ways to be driven: an app, a rental with a driver, the hotel’s car, and a house like this one. Each is right for something. The house is the one for a journey that matters — an arrival, an evening, a parent, a bride, a day of meetings — and the differences are small, specific things rather than a slogan.
An app is quick and right for a short hop. It prices by the minute and the mood of the city; it sends whoever is nearest; it asks you to rate him. The house writes one figure before the car moves and it does not change with the traffic; it names the sarathi the evening before; it never asks you to rate anyone. The car waits ninety minutes after a domestic landing without a message from you; an app’s driver cancels at the fourth.
A rental is right for a week of your own driving, or a car with a driver and no one else. It quotes by the kilometre and the hour and settles up at the end; the driver is the driver. The house settles before and adds nothing after; and beside the driver rides a sarathi, whose work is you — the door, the bags, the temperature, the silence, the gate he walked yesterday.
The hotel’s car is right when you want one bill and the hotel’s name on the door. It is often a very good car at a figure that includes the hotel. The house is independent, usually quieter in its arithmetic, reaches you before you check in and after you check out, and remembers you between visits. Many guests of the great hotels use both, for different days; the house says so on its hotel pages.
The figure is written and does not move. The sarathi’s name and photograph reach you the evening before. The car is cooled before you reach it and waits at the airport for the whole of the complimentary time. Your door is never locked against you; your route is yours; your music or none. Your cabin preferences are kept and travel with you. After dark there is an order the sarathi is held to. A tenth-minute lateness returns a fifth of the fare. The house asks you for nothing — not a rating, not a tip, not a review, not a referral. If a journey was beautiful you will say so yourself, to whom you like.
It is not the cheapest car in the city and does not try to be. It is not an app and cannot be at your door in four minutes. It does not own a hundred cars; it keeps a small number of partners whose cars it has sat in and whose papers it has seen, and it sends a sarathi of its own with each. For a short hop across Bandra, use the app. For the arrival, the evening, the parent, the bride, the day of meetings — this.
Reserve a journeyA written figure first. Then the car.