{"id":1293,"date":"2012-11-10T05:33:37","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T11:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beiskjaer.eu\/blog\/?p=1293"},"modified":"2012-11-18T05:29:34","modified_gmt":"2012-11-18T10:59:34","slug":"why-india-loves-a-good-electrician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beiskjaer.eu\/blog\/?p=1293","title":{"rendered":"Why India loves a good electrician"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anu Anand BBC News, Delhi<\/p>\n

\"Anu\u00a0Many Indians seem to be proud of their ability to deal with inefficiency – but how long can a country that projects itself as a global powerhouse continue to put up with a situation where anything that can go wrong, usually does?<\/div>\n

It has been two years since my family and I moved to India full-time and, when I look around the boxy, expensive flat we rent and reflect on how I have spent my time here, inevitably I feel a bit tired.<\/p>\n

On the bright side, I have managed to produce a second child, work and have some amazing adventures – but I also see many lost hours spent endlessly repairing things.<\/p>\n

I have lost count of how many electrical sockets have melted. For the past month, strange electrical fluctuations in our sitting room have turned it into a discotheque. We have even had light bulbs explode above our heads.<\/p>\n

No wonder my electrician has become my best friend, visiting us on average twice a week.<\/p>\n

All too often, while we are all getting ready for school and work, the water supply to the bathroom suddenly disappears, leaving everyone in mid-wash or with a mouth full of toothpaste.<\/p>\n

It is yet another one of those maddening Delhi dilemmas. Why is there water cascading off the roof from an overflowing storage tank but no water in the taps?<\/p>\n

Our landlord, as unflappable as ever, had a novel suggestion this time. He recommended we thump the taps, so while my husband and I went upstairs to try this, my three-year-old son ran for a pee into the marble-clad bathroom whose door opens directly onto the shower floor.<\/p>\n

\n

Nowhere I have lived has proven more fertile ground than India for Sod’s Law<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

His foot flew out from under him and he landed with an audible thump, dazed and shivering, before yowling for nearly 20 minutes in genuine agony.<\/p>\n

Not the “thump” my helpful landlord had in mind, I thought, furious, as I checked for signs of concussion.<\/p>\n

My son survived but I often wonder how long I am going to.<\/p>\n

As I write, my toilet flush is malfunctioning for the umpteenth time. A new metal cake-stand I bought yesterday does not fit together and, as I inflate a pack of party balloons for my children, I am finding every other one has a hole in it.<\/p>\n

That is not to mention the broken pavements or the dogs that roam freely in terrifying packs from nightfall.<\/p>\n

\"Stray<\/div>\n

I know, I know – India is an emerging power and a poor one at that. A few dodgy party balloons or stray dogs do not matter. But chronic inefficiency has a profound social and economic effect.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are now malls and fancy cars here but the people in them – India’s upper classes – routinely fall ill from unclean food, dirty water and mosquito-borne diseases.<\/p>\n

Like them, I too have hired an army of domestic staff to help keep the problems at bay but I cannot shake the view that, if the roads, power, water, hospitals and courts worked, we could all get on with more important things.<\/p>\n

Curiously, like my landlord, many Indians seem almost proud of being able to deal with constant inefficiency. Some have even suggested that this is an asset, and encourages creative problem-solving.<\/p>\n

But increasingly that suggestion is laughed at, especially by entrepreneurs in this burgeoning economy who are trying to create jobs while fighting death by 1,000 cuts.<\/p>\n

\"Wires\u00a0Some wiring could do with detangling\u00a0in Kolkata<\/div>\n

One internet entrepreneur described how his business survived a difficult start-up and predatory monopolies, only to fail when raw sewage began seeping into his offices. Rather than being compensated, he was sued for being late with the rent.<\/p>\n

An American who manufactures luxury furniture said an \u00a311,000 ($17,000) fine appeared one day because he denied free furniture to a tax official.<\/p>\n

But the most unique story of how India can confound came from a French contractor.<\/p>\n

\"Workers\u00a0Rush-hour in Delhi may not be the most efficient time to paint traffic lights<\/div>\n

He described how the site of a new multi-million-dollar construction project was suddenly overrun by a low-caste tribe claiming rights to the land.<\/p>\n

After panicked consultations, he was informed that the police would prove useless and the courts would only tie him up in knots.<\/p>\n

The solution, he was told, was to hire a rival tribe to drive the intruders away. Bizarrely, this worked but, as he pointed out, it hardly sends a business-friendly message.<\/p>\n

Nowhere I have lived has proven more fertile ground than India for Sod’s (or Murphy’s) Law – the axiom that anything that can go wrong will go wrong – than India. So what explains this epic inefficiency?<\/p>\n

My economics professor had an answer – India, he told me, has long had an economy based on digging holes and filling holes.<\/p>\n

Things go wrong by design, so that a multitude of middlemen can earn a living by fixing them.<\/p>\n

That was OK – charming even – when renting a flat here cost \u00a3300 ($480) a month and there was not a vast young, jobless population.<\/p>\n

But today, India is expensive even for the poorest and it continues to project itself to foreign investors as a global power house, albeit one with a fluctuating current.<\/p>\n

Which means there is at least a long and prosperous career ahead for my local electrician.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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