Jugaad

All through life I have never been a stickler for the right way to do things, but I always follow rules and fair to situations and people. Though, I am one of those who will allow somebody to get away by paying 100 as bribe, I am also likely to give the govt. employee a lecture on corruption sometime and am held back by parents from potentially volatile situations. Ha ha...Friends tell me I am a street-smart guy — expert in “jugaad”, to figure out ways of getting ahead faster anyhow. 

I think they have got it right.  For me “jugaad” is not a negative trait to be used to invent shortcuts to success through corrupt or illegal means. Jugaad is a very promising shortcuts, hailed worldwide by management experts as one of the reasons for India’s rapid economic growth. I hear the jugaad word increasingly as life moves on. I hear it mostly to my driver, jugaad for every situation. 

One hears of jugaad vehicles in rural India where a diesel engine is fitted to a cart or rickshaw. In many places of Haryana and Punjab they are still in use. I am lucky as a child I travelled thousands of time in jugaad to my village “Jakhauli” to National Highway, almost about 6-8 km., farmers made a diesel irrigation pump on a steel frame and called it jugaad. In fact, jugaad is recognised worldwide as a very Indian trait. Tata Nano is also hailed as the result of  jugaad — a car that suits the middle class pockets it is made for rather than one to compete with existing brands.

Jugaad has found its way to Wikipedia, where it is described as “an improvised system or workaround, which has to be used because of lack of resources.” India has invented several low cost implements that inspire management gurus across the world.

 The Android tablet computer produced by India, Aakash, is yet another example of Indian jugaad that the world is raving about. 

And most recent success of “Indian Satellite Chandryaan” budgeted 100crore, minimal ever in history.

“Jugaad” in India is a way of life and the improvisation finds its way in every sphere of life, where we somehow ‘manage’ things and move on. It is the daily struggle of trying to achieve what we can within the given constraints rather than straining against the bit and ruing our lot.

Long time back, Shekhar kapoor tweeted about a 16-year-old boy operating out of a “hole in a wall” shop ‘Cellphone  reapairs’ who repaired his Blackberry in six minutes after Shekhar had given up on BB service centres and was heading out to buy a new instrument! An uneducated, unwashed, greasy-handed boy, who claimed he could repair all cell phones, break codes, and repairs apps.

“The true Indian entrepreneurship that lies at what we call the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ is what else but jugaad!”

It is about finding simple ways of getting a job done.” While the West uses expensive R & D and instruments to innovate, creative and imaginative innovation in India happens at the grassroots level.

“Dhiru Bhai Ambani” once said reason behind the success of Reliance is innovation, not invention.

 No wonder then, if lump-sum percentage of Indian businessmen named “jugaad” as the key reason for their success.

Vote for cash, Incident happened in Parliament too was a hidden instance of winning support to run government was what else but “Jugaad.”