Jugaad-e-Pavlov

Hi everyone, welcome to the next edition of this newsletter.

“Jugaad” is something we keep hearing all the time and most of us would have done things that would construe as “Jugaad”. It has been an area of both introspection and observation for me and I thought it would be good to put down my thoughts on this.

Many flavours of Jugaad

There are many articles which try to portray that Indians are the best at Jugaad like this one from TimesNow . Some seem brilliant, some seem amusing, and some might seem downright ridiculous. But all of them tend to get circulated in social media as the victory of Jugaad.

But are all of them the same? We can broadly bucket Jugaad into different categories (not mutually exclusive):

• Making the best of existing resources - Eg., Using wooden thrashers as cricket bats
• Frugality - Eg., How people try to reuse plastic bottles
• An innovative shortcut that seems to just about work - Eg., Bikes converted to run as washing machines, motors and what not
• Completely out of the box innovation - Eg., The cost at which ISRO seems manage a launch
• Navigation - Eg., Trying to use some “influence” to get something done; driving on the “right” side of the road
• The Last Minute Rush - Submitting a project few minutes before the deadline. Flipping Parkinson’s Law from “work expands to fill the time” to “work only gets done in the last hour”.

Good or Bad?

All examples above seem to work. So isn’t it good? Might be at that moment. The next question to ask is that is it sustainable? Does it work in the long run? And is there any compromise?

These questions, I feel, distinguish the good from the not-so-good ones.

Let us take the large autos / tuktuks that can normally carry say 4 passengers but seem to fit in dozens in far flung rural areas with bad roads. Is this good? For the person driving it, it makes great economics. For the person riding it, it makes great economics. From a carbon footprint point of view, this again might be a great deal. But the people have to make a lot of compromises that might result in injuries in the long run or risk accidents. In a way this jugaad was needed because of poor infrastructure, not because of just frugality. But is it sustainable? Might be a good vikram-betal question. ??

Let us consider another example that isn’t a shade of grey. The most used jugaad by a distance in India, so much so that it is taken for granted now. Not following traffic rules. Skipping signals, driving on wrong side of the road, honking as if a train is passing by, etc. All because everyone has to go somewhere urgently and rules aren’t important in such urgencies. This was meant for ambulances but somehow everyone feels they are driving one. And due to this urgency, no one ends up reaching on time. Crab in a bucket mentality at work. This is a great example of how jugaad isn’t just bad but makes us less systematic and unreliable. It seems to work in the moment but is degenerative in the long run.

Why Pavlov?

Igor Pavlov is famous for his experiment with his dog that lead to the theory of classical conditioning. A bell was rung every time before food was given to a dog. So much so that after a period of time, the dog used to salivate just on hearing the bell.

Hence, the word Pavlov/Pavlovian has come to mean conditioning of the mind that is taught to do something over a period of time without thinking.

Similarly, shortcuts that people take in the name of jugaad like skipping traffic rules, unhygienic cloud kitchens, etc might make it easier for the people involved in the short run but has long term consequences.

And culturally, we seem to have got into a Pavlovian need for trying jugaads / shortcuts to solve for the short term without thinking it through.

If we got to any venue a day before a wedding or an inauguration, it would appear that nothing has been done.

Even at work, people would try to scamper by copying from the net, adapt from another country or hustle at the last minute - rather than building processes that enable to us to think/innovate for the long-term.

Unfortunately, a majority of the population are not in a position to think beyond subsistence and hence not able to think long term. Companies too have to show quick growth trajectories to prove a point to these investors. Politicians would want to show something immediate for winning elections. A biryani packet before an election seems to work better than building better roads (at the cost of it in fact).

But for those who have the freedom to reflect long term, should we pause and reflect?

The Takeaways

Jugaad is extolled as an Indian way - as an alternate to Western ways of working. It may be true but not always good. It could be detrimental in fact.

We would need to refrain taking shortcuts in the name of jugaad and channelise our energies to come up real innovative solutions that can make not just India, but the world a better place.

PS: This article itself has been in the making for quite a few weeks and I had to do last minute “jugaad” to finally make it happen. Sometimes the last minute can give the adrenaline rush needed to help us focus better. ??