A moving tale on the plight of gig workers

Zwigato

Hindi (Theatres)

Director: Nandita Das

Cast: Kapil Sharma, Shahana Goswami

Rating: 3/5

The app on your phone delivers food to you. Leave a poor feedback, and it snatches the delivery boy’s daily bread.

Zwigato (a portmanteau of Swiggy and Zomato) follows the lives, and bikes, of millions of “invisible” gig workers in India.

They are omnipresent, yet we don’t “see” them. They are the insignificant foot soldiers yoked to a powerful tool that runs solely on “stars”.

Comedian Kapil Sharma veers off his terrain to dig deep into the informal labour market. And he comes up with a poignant, but familiar, story of India’s unemployed... several lakhs of them.

Also Read: Nandita: ‘Zwigato’ reflects the tussle between man and algorithms

Sharma is a casualty of Covid layoffs. Once a company manager, he now zooms on his bike to deliver food, mostly to the privileged pockets of the city. His school-going daughter sulks when she comes to know that papa was at her principal’s door, too.

The social commentary shows facts as they are. At one point, a daily wage worker anxiously asks Sharma whether he can take up delivery jobs on a cycle.

Director Nandita Das shines plenty of light on a country that trumpets countless schemes for the poor, but discriminates on the basis of class and caste. The divide is so commonplace that one doesn’t realise that they exist. A lift scene tells us that it is better to be a dog than a housekeeping staff.

Shahana Goswami does a terrific act as Kapil Sharma’s wife who tries to make some money as a cleaner at a mall.

‘Zwigato’ is an everyman’s tale, a man who is trampled every day by the entitled class. Dangle some deceptive incentives, and he is ready to toil around the clock. Because he is helpless. The next time you order food, don’t be stingy with stars. You might be stealing from your delivery agent’s plate.