Can Jugaad be taught (Saturday, 24 September 2011 By Guruvantage Team)
Can ‘Jugaad’ be taught??
'Mater artium necessitas’ (Latin, dated year - 1519) – in simple english translates to ‘Necessity is the mother of Invention’ succinctly expressed by Victor Hugo in the year 1852!! Closer home, translated to the famous Indian geek word – ‘Jugaad’ – A survival tactic!
With soccer goal posts being marked out by slippers/shoes/bricks or even pieces of stray cloth with the height and width being notional...With villages in India developing an indigenous transport – ‘Phatphatiya’ powered by water pumpsets….with cell-phones being charged with truck batteries… to washing machines in Punjab being used to churn milk to make butter…are all some of the variants of the Indian way of doing innovative fixes - ‘Jugaad’. Reminds me of a hilarious Advertisement of a chewing-gum brand set in the background of the maharaja days, where a peasant is rushing through the village tracks...onto the outskirts…into the palace just in time to suspend himself from the chandelier…pop in the chewing-gum…and break into a broad smile..teeth all-galore to illuminate the room (as a real chandelier would) – and the maharaja begins his dinner meal!! – White teeth being a ‘Jugaad’ for electricity!!
I have often been left wondering for a while now, if the skill set for ‘Jugaad’ comes naturally to Indians such as you and me? Or is it imbibed over a period of time by observance of various day-to-day replicas of minor and major ‘Jugaads’ being acted out? Or is it a hit and trial methodology that anyone can inherit? If the last is true, then do u visualise a pink-faced tourist negotiating his way with a ticket collector in a packed passenger train en-route to the land of Bihar and end up getting the TT’s berth at the end of it all??
Can various ‘innovative thinking workshops’ in plush air-conditioned auditoriums really teach the essence of the science of Jugaad? Or does one need to be exposed to situations where the basic human instincts of survival need to rough it out to become a ‘jugaadu’?!?!