The other day, I was admiring the skill with which the upholsterer was working on my sofas. Working with practised ease, he padded the cushions, pasted an extra layer of foam and cut strips of cloth to pin over it all. Then, to my horror, he casually popped about a dozen iron nails in his mouth, spitting them out as and when he needed them. "Why do you put nails into your mouth," I asked. "It's terribly unhealthy… what if one of them nicks your mouth?" The man replied, his voice muffled, probably because of all the extra hardware in his oral cavity: "This is the best way to do it as it makes the nails easy to retrieve. I've been upholstering sofas for the last 20 years, and have learnt with experience that this is the best jugaad for using nails."
What if some of the nails were rusted, I wondered. What if he got tetanus? Moreover, as he had spent all his work life with iron nails in his mouth, he ran the risk of iron toxicity, which could lead to anything from hair thinning and skin pigmentation to Alzheimer's Disease. I told the upholsterer all this, but he was unimpressed.
"I have plenty of hair," he said, pointing to his thick locks. "And I haven't experienced any other ill effects either." Instead, he told me this was an accepted practice amongst upholsterers, and nobody he knew had ever suffered any ill effects. "When I learnt to upholster sofas, my master told me that in this job, time was always of the essence," he said. "Nobody wants people like us to take days upon days in their living rooms." He showed me the nails that were used to affix the fabric to the wooden frame. "See how fine these are? We use four of these in every inch. If I had to pick them up from this pile, one after the other, it would take me so much more time! But when they're in my mouth, I can take them when I need them, leaving my hands free for other work."
Surely there must be a better way, I thought. I fetched a decrepit pin cushion from my desk. He laughed when he saw it. "This is for oil pins, which are even finer than my nails. It won't work at all!" Undeterred, I brought him a lump of dough. If he were to stick his nails in it, they'd be easy to pull out, I suggested. "I'm now set in my ways," he said, spitting out yet another nail. "Maybe you should teach my apprentice these jugaads."
Working on tight schedules, this was one of the many ways in which people like him simplified the job at hand. He showed me his scissors. "I don't use these to cut cloth, there's no time for such niceties. I just snip the cloth at the point I need to cut it, and then tear it." This was fine, I said, as it was harming neither the finish of his product nor his health. He thought for a moment and said, "If you look at it like that, think of all the lint, fibre and dust we inhale in this job. I have a near permanent cold and cough and even an illiterate man like me can see the connection between it and the upholstering I do."
Perhaps thanks to his unsafe, unhygienic but efficient nail-mouthing, my work was completed in record time. I was, however, left wondering. We tend to glorify jugaad as an innovative Indian bent of mind. But sometimes, the same glorious spirit justifies shortcuts and poor work standards and conditions. What then?
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