Ola Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bhavish Aggarwal’s old video discussing “work-life balance” went viral again on social media platform X on Wednesday, drawing reactions from netizens amid his row with standup comedian Kunal Kamra.
In an earlier interview with the news portal YourStory, the Ola CEO described work-life balance as “not the right construct” and acknowledged that people may not agree with his contrarian view.
“I don’t think work-life balance is the right construct, again its a contrarian view, there will be people who will disagree with me. Many people will disagree with me,” said Aggarwal in his interaction with the news portal.
Aggarwal also referred to some historical perspectives he lived by, such as the concept of Saturday and Sunday, which he claimed is not an Indian but a Western thing.
“In India, we never had Saturdays and Sundays; we had the lunar calendar, and we had holidays based on that,” Aggarwal said. “We had one or two days monthly,” he added.
The Ola CEO explained that this concept is a “Western import” that gained traction after the Industrial Revolution.
Shares of Ola Electric Mobility ended today’s trading with a cut of 0.3 per cent at 95.15 apiece.
Netizen’s React
Reactions to Aggarwal’s resurfaced interview flooded social media.
“In capitalistic logo, ka bas chale to 24/7 gadha majduri kara le logo se aur fir usko justify bhi kar de paid campaigns karwa ke [sic],” said Prayag Tiwari, criticising capitalists for overworking people and justifying it through paid campaigns.
Vedant G, a student at the National Institute of Technology Goa, shared a screenshot of a humourous comment from Instagram user Maniakiduniyahd, suggesting that Aggarwal should sell ‘raths’, i.e., chariots, instead of electric scooters.
How did the Aggarwal-Kamra row start?
The video gained traction amid an exchange between Aggarwal and Kamra, who, in a post on X, questioned Ola and Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari about the dusty two-wheelers standing in front of what appeared to be an Ola showroom or service centre.
Bhavish Aggarwal challenged Kamra, asking him to come and help out at Ola offering to pay him more than what he earned from his alleged “paid tweet” or his “failed comedy career.”
“Since you care so much, @kunalkamra88, come and help us out! I’ll even pay more than you earned for this paid tweet or from your failed comedy career. Or else sit quiet and let us focus on fixing the issues for the real customers. We’re expanding service network fast and backlogs will be cleared soon [sic],” said Aggarwal on X.
