✨ For You
Recent
Most reacted
Most viewed
October 20, 2026 · 5 min read
Farah had just wrapped up a fourteen-hour shoot under the blinding studio lights in Goregaon. Her shoulder ached from hoisting a twelve-kilogram camera rig across makeshift ramps, tracking every punch and backflip for a high-octane commercial. She logged off, packed her lens kit, pulled a spare helmet out of her bag, and switched on her Rapido app.
For the next three hours, she ferried commuters between Andheri station and Lokhandwala. No glamour. Just traffic snarls, potholes, and passenger small talk.
When news broke that a camera operator who works on sets with action star Tiger Shroff was also picking up rides as a Rapido captain—a detail the ride-hailing company publicly acknowledged and celebrated—the internet reacted with its usual mix of disbelief and pity. People wondered aloud how someone associated with the glitz of Bollywood could find themselves ferrying passengers on a two-wheeler through Mumbai's humid gridlock.
If that was your first reaction, you are looking through the wrong lens. This isn't a story of desperation. It is a portrait of everyday Indian pragmatism in an economy where a single income stream feels increasingly fragile.
There is a persistent myth in our cities that working near wealth makes you wealthy. People assume that if you shoot film sets, design sets for luxury brands, or edit reels for famous influencers, money simply cascades down. Reality is far more brutal.
Film crews, freelance technicians, and event professionals live on a feast-or-famine cycle. A major production pays well, but payments routinely arrive sixty or ninety days late. Meanwhile, Mumbai rent does not wait sixty days. Neither do grocery bills, mobile recharges, or health insurance premiums.
A generation ago, you waited out the dry spells by borrowing from an uncle or running a tab at the corner kirana. Today, an app on your phone lets you turn three idle evening hours into â‚ą600 of direct, immediate cash. No debt. No bruised pride.
Honest work, paid in real time.
This dynamic is no longer limited to showbiz freelancers. Look around your own circle.
Consider Harpreet, who earns â‚ą52,000 a month working in operations at a logistics firm in Pune. After deducting â‚ą18,000 for rent, a â‚ą9,000 personal loan EMI, utility bills, and basic groceries, his savings account has barely â‚ą4,000 left by the twentieth of every month. One dental emergency or a friend's wedding out of town blows his balance to zero.
Harpreet doesn't drive a bike taxi, but on weekends, he grades assignments for an online ed-tech platform. Another colleague edits audio files on freelance platforms after dinner. A third manages social media accounts for a neighborhood sweet shop.
The Reserve Bank of India’s consumer confidence surveys have consistently shown that while Indians feel optimistic about the country's long-term trajectory, day-to-day cost pressures—school fees, healthcare, rent—continue to pinch middle-class wallets. When inflation quietly nibbles away at real wages, an extra ₹8,000 to ₹12,000 a month from a side hustle isn't pocket money. It is breathing room.
Picking up extra work takes real physical and mental effort. The tragedy happens when that hard-earned side income vanishes into convenience spending—ordering late-night biryani on Swiggy or mindlessly buying gadgets on sale because "it's extra money anyway."
If you put your hours on the line outside your primary job, treat every rupee of that hustle money with total intention.
1. Build the "Buffer That Sleeps in a Bank"
Before you buy a single share or start an ambitious SIP, direct your side income straight into a liquid fund or a simple sweep-in fixed deposit. Your target should be three to six months of bare-bones living expenses. If your primary employer delays salary or if project work dries up for two months, this buffer stops you from touching your credit card or begging a relative.
2. Attack High-Interest Debt With a Vengeance
Carrying an outstanding balance on your credit card at 42% annualized interest? Paying 16% on a personal loan you took during the pandemic? Funnel 100% of your gig or freelance cash directly toward clearing the principal on that debt. There is no market investment on Dalal Street that reliably yields a 40% guaranteed return. Paying off toxic debt does.
3. Keep Side Earnings in a Separate Account
Open a basic, zero-balance digital savings account that is completely separate from your primary salary account. Route every freelance payout, consulting fee, or ride-hailing earning into it. When money pools in your main salary account, it blends with your lifestyle expenses and disappears. Keeping it isolated forces you to make conscious transfer decisions.
4. Don't Forget the Tax Department
Many first-time freelancers make the mistake of assuming that small side payouts fly under the radar. They do not. With financial transactions now linked to your PAN through the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS), income from apps and freelance clients shows up clearly. If you are a salaried individual picking up freelance income, you can often claim presumptive taxation under Section 44ADA of the Income Tax Act, which lets professionals declare 50% of gross receipts as profit. Consult a tax professional early so you aren't blindsided in July.
When the story of the camera operator surfaced, Rapido's response was simple: they acknowledged him as a hard-working captain who chooses how to spend his hours. That is the correct framing.
For decades, Indian society has suffered from a lingering colonial hangover about social status. We admire the corporate executive who spends twelve hours in a cubicle doing pivot tables, but we look sideways at someone who puts on a helmet to earn an extra â‚ą500 between evening meetings.
That snobbery is fading, and good riddance. Financial security does not care about optics. It cares about whether your household can pay its bills, whether you have an emergency fund when the hospital bill arrives, and whether you sleep soundly at night without worrying about next month’s rent.
If shooting action sequences on set pays the bills today, and ferrying passengers across town pays for your mother's medicine tomorrow, both jobs deserve equal respect.
No comments yet. Be the first!