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.

Updating Raksha Bandhan

Raksha Bandhan is almost here. The day that celebrates the love between a brother and sister. I am inundated with offers of sending online rakhis to my brother in Mumbai. Silver rakhis. Rakis with pearls. Rakhi with free Tilak, Roli and Chawal. Rakhis with pooja thalis. Rakhis with with a box of shuddh-desi-ghee-soan-papdi. Rakhi with cards. Rakhi with flowers. Rakhi sets. Rakhi bracelets. Auspicious Rakhis (aren't they all supposed to be?) All from about $1.20-$30. And of course the online, free Rakhi e-cards. No tying required. This is what about.com says about Raksha Bandhan

The chaste bond of love between a brother and a sister is one of the deepest and noblest of human emotions. 'Raksha Bandhan' or 'Rakhi' is a special occasion to celebrate this emotional bonding by tying a holy thread around the wrist. This thread, which pulsates with sisterly love and sublime sentiments, is rightly called the 'Rakhi'. It means 'a bond of protection', and Raksha Bandhan signifies that the strong must protect the weak from all that's evil. [emphasis mine]

Really? I am sure the custom/ritual made a lot of sense 500 years ago, but why are we still celebrating it? It is just so last-millennia. "But what is the harm?" I am asked when I bring it up. "It's just a festival. We are not backward and uneducated. We will send our girls to colleges just like our boys. They should stand on their own two feet." Isn't that sending mixed messages? Or am I the only one who is missing something here?

Don't brothers take care of brothers, and sisters take care of sisters, and sisters take care of brothers? This custom probably made sense at a time when women had no where to turn to if their husbands and fathers died. But definitely not so today. I am sure there are plenty of sisters out there who would lend (or even just give) money to their brothers and sisters for their education, or a down payment on their new house/car/business or knock some sense into their heads should they get into trouble or help them land a job of their dreams. I am sure there are plenty of sisters who would take in their brother's/sister's children should an emergency arise. Why are we not celebrating this? There are sisters who are looking out for their brothers and sisters alike and there are brothers who are looking out for their brothers. What is so special with the brother-sister bond that cannot be had with a sister-sister bond or a brother-brother bond? This is obviously hypocritical especially among the forward thinking set.

And let us not forget the other end of the spectrum: the brothers who kill their sisters for honor. I am sure growing up, these sisters lovingly tied Rakhis to their brothers arms. Did the brothers do good on their promise? Hell, no. Rakhi has become a mere rhetoric as most rituals tend to be over time.

Like old habits, old rituals die hard. I remember a college friend who would dutifully make a trip to our home every year on Raksha Bandhan to tie a Rakhi to my kid brother. She only had a sister and obviously that would not do. Not surprisingly, she and my kid brother are not in touch at all, she is my friend not his, but she talks to her sister almost daily, offering and receiving support and advice, despite the fact that there is half a globe between them.

So, let's celebrate an updated version of Raksha Bandhan this year by tying Rakhis to brothers and sisters alike. Celebrate the bond of sibling-ship that is equal. So let brothers tie a Rakhi to brothers and sisters to sisters and brothers to sisters and sisters to brothers. Let them make a promise that they will look out for each other. And then, let us, the good parents that we are, get on with our jobs of parenting and make sure the darned kids make good on that promise.

Unchased

I had always thought of myself as the been-there-done-that-person. So when I read this post by Usha, it made me reflect. I was a passionate twenty-something with a taste for adventure. Took a few years off after college despite the promise of well paying jobs and crossed the line into the artsy world. Jaded and a couple of years later, took a flight to the US, searching for new adventures and to go to a Grad school that had an excellent ranking in the artsy field. I was going on a mission of self-discovery, after all. Nothing was unattainable, not if I wanted it badly anyways. There were mountains to be scaled, rivers to be crossed and roads to be uncovered. Metaphorically, of course. And I had to do it on my own. No second-hand experiences for me, thank you very much. After all, the map was not the terrain. How far could I go? What would or could stop me? I was my own master. Surely, the answers to the questions of the soul could not be found in the ennui of mundane life. I shuddered at thoughts of being squeezed into a watertight schedule, getting married, keeping house. That life was not for me. I would live my dreams- not just sit on their periphery- leaving none unchased. Thus spoke the hubris of youth.

And chase my dreams, I did. One adventure after the other. One lesson learnt after the other. Some good, some not-so. With each experiment, I was convinced I was a better version of my old self. This was true. But only partly. The flaw in my meticulous rationale was that I had to be a bohemian, turn my life into a roller coaster ride to truly get "it". There was no other way, not to me. But my way had its failings too, like every other way usually does. I was missing a point. In trying to achieve the big things, I was losing out on the smaller ones. Looking back, I think my school experience precipitated that idea. As art students, we were encouraged to attribute a larger meaning to everything we saw, heard and felt and frankly, in some, rather in many instances, it took on quite a comic quality. And when I met BigGeek, the dichotomy grew even more. In the end the pendulum swung to the other side.

I had planned to go one way and ended up going the other. But such is the story of most people. By the time I was ready to leave my twenties behind, most of my dreams, chased, lay behind, half-forgotten. The fervor was lost. The passion had cooled. I was squeezed into a watertight schedule, got married, kept house. I often wondered if people are born with a fixed dream quota and if I had finished up mine in my twenties. Most of my dreams are not really dreams now, they are more like desires. Some are of the go-there-see-that variety – go to Manasarover, take a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway, cross the Arctic circle, some, a little more life-changing – start a dairy farm, be a stay at home mom, write a book and get it published. I would be happy if I did these things, but it won't break me if I don't. So, if there is a dream that I have now, it probably is to truly live in the moment. No matter how big the moment or how small. I chase this dream from time to time, but it's hard, very hard. And when I look at Chip, going where his heart desires, not shackled by remembrances of the past, nor afraid of what lies ahead, I suddenly realize the true allure of having a child: that they live in the moment, here and now and as you watch them, you do too.