In India, many people don’t have the luxury of having enclosed washrooms with running water. However, despite these limitations, people come up with solutions through an improvisation technique which is colloquially known as jugaad.
Now one such video of a makeshift jugaad shower is going viral. In the video, an old man is seen washing his hair by putting a water drum on his back. This drum is secured using a cloth. After soaping his scalp, the man slightly bends his back so that the water from the drum trickles to his head and washes away the foam. What’s even more interesting is that the wastewater from the hair washing gets collected in a tub that is placed right in front of the man.
This undated video was shared online by a Twitter user named Roma Balwani @RBalwani on November 27. While posting the video she wrote, “On a lighter note on a Sunday morning! Couldn’t resist sharing this forward! Simple, innovative, cost effective and it works! Jugaad! @hvgoenka @anandmahindra”.
Appreciating the man’s ingenuity, a Twitter user wrote, “Desperate times call for desperate measures;):) Cost effective shower replacement”.
Another person commented on the sustainable implication of the improvised shower and wrote, “Seems like reuse of soap water along with saving of water, effort, time, bucket & mug.”
However amongst the praise, there were many people who argued that the video was a standard example of ‘poverty porn”. Echoing this view, a Twitter user wrote, “Some people like poverty porn a lot.” Another one said, “Stop glorifying poverty, help them you elite morons.”