Innovate to live

He would have presented a perfect photo-op for Independence Day to any cameraman of the ink or television variety in the national capital.

He would have presented a perfect photo-op for Independence Day to any cameraman of the ink or television variety in the national capital. A labourer, he was using the spade he had toiled with through the day, as a tava to make his chapattis over a makeshift fire.

An apt comment on the state of the nation, a world weary ideologue might say. What a design innovation, someone else might exclaim. If asked, the labourer would have said necessity and want. His ingenuity is in line with a tradition of on-the-feet design innovations which constantly seek to circumvent the well-designed inequities of a system by creating a momentary breathing space to exist.

Take the construction worker whose child sleeps in a hammock which multi-tasks as a dupatta for her as well as a blanket. Ever notice the women who 8212; mystifyingly, to observers 8212; hug a compound wall on the road, voluminous ghaghras spread out, to answer nature8217;s call, in the absence of public toilets?

In this universe, design is a guerilla tactic to survive in hostile conditions. It arises out of a hardy empathy with life. On the other hand is the engine of growth 8212; the manufacturing industry with its mainstream notion of design. Here value addition and obsolescence are different names for neighbour8217;s envy, that cruel jab under the heart. After all, one of the connotations of independence is the freedom to want more.

So, on Independence Day take your pick 8212; there are air coolers which look like 8212; sorry, are designed as sleek air conditioners. There are fans, cunningly designed with coloured bands on the rotor. You pick according to the colour scheme of your house. Better still, go for that new fan with four blades 8212; it8217;s a novelty even though three blades is the optimum number needed for maximum air circulation; more blades impede the air flow. But as actor Shah Rukh Khan admonishes consumers in an ad, 8216;Don8217;t be santusht satisfied, ask for more8217;.

Quite right, each one has to do her bit for a rising economic power8217;s journey into the pages of history. It is not enough to innovate and just survive, from day to day. One has to be part of the big picture. And, hey, if you are a stickler for quality, you can buy every foreign brand in India these days, so stop lugging it from abroad in bursting suitcases.

It8217;s not as if we can8217;t recognise good design. Of course we can. One day some enterprising firm will make a zero-calorie-non-stick tava which trebles as a kitchen garden spade as well as an exercise machine to keep the hands ageless. If they see our labourer making his rotis on his spade, they may just upbraid him for trying to infringe their design.

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But perhaps by then grain prices will have become so high there will be no dough for our labourer to make his rotis with. He will go back to calling a spade a spade.

The writer is editor of the children8217;s website pitara.com