Made in India, but quite badly

BigGeek and Chip went to the Indian Grocery Store on Saturday and brought back a jar of Horlicks, some frozen parathas, a packet of cumin seeds, and a small jar of asafetida. All much needed items and all very, very user unfriendly. Take the jar of asafetida, for instance. It has one of those covers that you twist to reveal a small opening from which the asafetida can be dispensed. Sounds great in theory. But the little opening has to be either carved out with a knife or you need to poke a jagged hole in the marked space. Every time I run out of asafetida I groan. Because it takes me more than five minutes to get the jar to work, not to mention the hazard of trying to poke a hole through sturdy plastic using a sharp knife with a toddler playing around. What could be a better design? Precut the hole and cover the jar with foil which can be peeled away. Is that so hard to come up with?

Speaking of peel away foil covers, the Horlicks jar has it – very thoughtful indeed - but I still have to use a knife. Because the foil has no tab with which to grip and peel. So I run the knife along the edge and cut away the foil instead of peeling. Is it so hard to put a tiny tab with which to peel?

The jar of tamarind paste is the worst. It simply has sealed plastic on top and then a screw-top lid that fits badly. I have to cut away along the edges of the very sturdy plastic and discard the disc. Very messy and very hard. Is it so dificult to pack it into a squeeze type bottle?

And take the packets of Maggi noodles which don’t have directions on them (how much water am I supposed to boil, you idiots) Or the bottle of Kewra essence which refuses to open no matter how much you twist it and once opened, takes the bottom plastic ring with the screw-on cap. I could go and on. Why doesn’t the Indian consumer demand better usability?

My sister-in-law sent a cute piggy bank for Chip a few months ago. It was spring loaded and died within hours of using it. It wasn’t cheap for a plastic trinket. It was about Rs.200 and I have many spring loaded dollar store toys that have outlived the piggy bank. Does nobody care? Is it that we don’t mind wasting time and energy on things like opening jars? Why doesn’t anybody give a thought on how things are actually used?

Is it because Indians have maids and cooks that do most of the housework? The people who buy don’t actually use it. Do people really have that many maids and cooks that they never have to open a jar of Horlicks to give to their children? Or use the toaster or the mop (oh no, not the mop, everybody has a maid who uses the poccha. Let her break her back bending down. Why spend good money on a mop even when you can afford it?) And the small things like the jars of asafetida? I am sure the cooks and maids buy asafetida for their own households too. I just can’t understand the mindset. Are we really so blasé? It’s depressing.

Take the instance of the Wal-Mart near our house. It was the store I went to buy Chip’s diapers, wipes, formula, blankets because the prices were always low. Over the years the number of Indian employees grew and I was pleasantly surprised. But store began to look shoddy. Inventory was piled on the floor underfoot, often trampled; the shop assistants barely knew where I could find things I was looking for. They dug noses (really). The checkout people were surly to all non-Indian customers, never bothered to greet and thank people for their business. In the end, it got so distressing that I stopped going to the store. Until a few months ago when I had to buy some jersey shorts for Chip. The atmosphere had changed. The store was clean; I was asked if I was found every thing I wanted. The checkout people were pleasant and there was not one Indian employee to be found. The we-are-ok-with-substandard-everthing Indian attitude had spread to our local Wal-Mart too.

What will make us change? More competition that will force us to think better? Or is a more fundamental change required? A realization that our time and energies could be used in a more useful fashion rather than waste them trying to open jars. Or is it a question of value? Or the lack of? Or are we simply not proud of our work? Or perhaps we are still living in the feudal times when businesses thought they were doing you a favor selling goods to you. I haven’t found an answer to why we fail to demand better products and why we fail to create them. Indians are great bargain hunters. I don’t know how we fail to see that badly designed products are not bargains at all.