“Ab main 50 rupees ki Maggi ke liye tere liye neeche aaun?” That, by the rider’s telling, was the customer’s answer when a Zomato delivery agent phoned from the street to say he was disabled and could not make it upstairs.
He went up anyway. The building had no lift, and the flat was on the second floor.
Two flights, then a cancelled order
The man runs the Instagram account @handicapzomatorider, and the clip he posted shows the climb step by step. He moves slowly, order in hand. At the customer’s gate he tells the camera what happened next: “Main upar tak aaya order lekar unke gate par aur customer ne cancel kar diya order.” He then holds up his phone. The screen reads “Order Cancelled”.
His caption was blunt: “Customer ke ghar tak parcel leke gaya; customer ne order cancel kar diya.” The order was a Rs 50 packet of Maggi.
Reports differ a little on the numbers. One count has the video at more than 26.1 million views, another at over 24 million, with more than 1 million likes and 34,000 comments. Either way, it travelled far.
What people said
The replies were mostly tender. “It just breaks my heart how people can be so insensitive and prioritise monetary power over humanity,” one user wrote, adding that “we never know the other side of the story.” Another called him a man to be proud of: “Handicap aap nahi vo hai, I’m so proud of you sir.” A third was angrier, saying people who lack basic empathy “should be flagged on the app.”
Not everyone was convinced. Some asked why the person filming never offered to carry the bag up. A few wondered aloud whether the scene was staged. Others thought he had simply posted it to show what delivery work asks of people.
The rider answered the cameraman question himself. The man filming was not a regular companion, he said. He has no cameraman riding with him and now and then asks someone nearby to record.
Why he could not hand it off
Another question was why the customer had not been warned. According to the rider, Zomato tells customers when a delivery partner has a disability and asks whether they can collect the order from downstairs. Whether that prompt reached this customer is unclear, and he did not say.
Nor could he pass the bag to a stranger for the last stretch. A customer might complain that someone else had handled the food, he explained, and that complaint would land on him.
A company with other things on its mind
Zomato is owned by Eternal Limited, which also runs Blinkit, the events service District and the grocery supplier Hyperpure. The platform delivers in more than 800 Indian cities, a figure the company gave as of 2023. In October 2025, India’s Ministry of Labour tied up with Zomato to boost employment opportunities and strengthen the gig economy.
No company response to the video had surfaced in the coverage. What Deepinder Goyal was talking about publicly was different. He said Zomato would ship a “Mehmaan Mode” that week, after LinkedIn user Ayushmaan Agarwalla, a marketing manager, suggested a toggle that hides menu prices so a host can pass the phone around the table. “No price, no embarrassment and no hesitation,” Agarwalla wrote. His post drew over 2,800 reactions and 74 comments.
Goyal has also been promoting Temple, a wearable that tracks blood flow in the brain, with public pre-orders set to open on November 1.
Sources
- Zomato
- Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal shares an update on Temple device, writes âWe are now taking pre-orders from everyone who signed up â¦â
- Zomato features: Zomato to roll out price-masking âMehmaan Modeâ for group orders after LinkedIn userâs suggestion – The Economic Times
- Zomato to roll out price-masking ‘Mehmaan Mode’ for group orders after LinkedIn user’s suggestion
- Specially Abled Zomato Delivery Agent Climbs Stairs To Deliver Order, Customer Cancels It At Doorstep; Video Goes Viral
- Zomato Rider Climbs To 2nd Floor Despite Disability, Customer Cancels Order At Doorstep; Internet Outraged
Photo: SerChevalerie (CC0)
