India, March 11 -- There is an old iconic song, Drive by The Cars ( the American new wave band that helped define the late 1970s and 1980s) built around one quietly haunting question: who's gonna drive you home tonight? It stays with you because mobility has never been merely transactional. Beneath the mechanics of movement lies something more human: trust, reassurance, and the belief that the journey will somehow hold together.

For years, Uber in India was seen through a simple lens: book a cab, get to work, get back home, repeat. That version of the story is no longer enough. What the company unveiled at its recent media briefing in India, with the launch of Intercity Bus ticketing on the Uber app, may at first glance seem like another...