You are currently viewing Funny once you get used to it: India’s missing finishing Touch – 25 Jul 13

Funny once you get used to it: India’s missing finishing Touch – 25 Jul 13

Yesterday I described one habit of Indians that especially people from other countries may find difficult to deal with: their politeness and formalities. Apart from the fact that you will find many Indians to generally be very polite, you will also find that they can get very enthusiastic about starting something new, a new project, creating something, making a change and putting their ideas into action. That is the spirit of the beginning. When you look at things a bit later, at a point where the end should be close, you will find a fully different mindset. It often feels as though their thoughts are already planning the next project. They are just not good in finishing what they started!

There are so many examples for this and it gets most obvious in buildings and construction work. The painter for example paints the walls with his small hand brush, not with a roller. He spends hours on doing it properly and neatly without painting for example on the plaster of paris at the ceiling – but then just carelessly moves his brush by the electrical switchboard, leaving a trail of paint on the side of it, catching every visitor’s eye.

The carpenter fits a custom-made cupboard on the narrow end of one room, in the corner that was made for it. It fits exactly and looks wonderful on the first look. On the second glance however you notice something that will occupy your mind whenever you look at the cupboard from that moment on: One of the handles is fixed two centimeters above the other one just next to it.

The plumber installs the sanitary equipment. To close all holes and finish it off, he uses cement. He closes the holes – but doesn’t pay attention on the surrounding where he smeared cement onto the wall and the floor where several drops of cement are then forever stuck on the marble.

Our janitor once did a temporary fix for the door closer of our office which had gotten loose and was blocking the door. He tied a string to a hook at the ceiling and to the closer, holding the closer up so that the door would open. A day later he came with the equipment to fix the closer, did it and untied the string from the closer. He was already standing on a chair but could still not reach to the hook at the ceiling to untie it from there, too. So what did he do? Of course he did not take the pains to get something bigger than a chair to reach up! He simply reached up as high as he could and pulled with a jerk – tearing the string and leaving a small rest dangling at the hook. Sitting in our office, we were staring at that small thing for weeks, wondering why he had done that until finally one of us took pity on the others and got it down.

We had a bathtub installed in a bathroom. It came in plastic wrapping, we let the workers in, they finished their job and left. The cleaning staff did a great job clearing the mess and we stood in front of a shining new bathtub – no wait, not all was shiny! They had left one sticker on the whole side of the tub, reading to everyone who came into the bathroom: ‘Attention, handle with care!’ It was a sticker but they had permanently fixed it into the bathroom along with the tub by attaching half of it with cement to the marble.

If you travel through India some day, just keep an eye open for these small pieces of imperfection. It is a characteristic that you can find all over the country and once you stop being bothered by it, you will smile and laugh about it!

Related posts

कृपया ग्लानि न करें यदि किसी की कल्पना करके आपका खड़ा अथवा गीली हो जाए

क्या मोनोगमी अप्राकृतिक है? क्या अपने जीवन साथी के अलावा किसी और के साथ यौन कल्पनाओं का होना मानसिक विकृति ...

Bitte haben Sie kein schlechtes Gewissen, wenn Sie eine Erektion bekommen oder nass werden, weil Sie sich jemanden vorstellen

Ist Monogamie unnatürlich? Ist es eine psychische Störung, sexuelle Fantasien mit jemand anderem als Ihrem Ehepartner zu haben? Sollten Sie ...

Please don’t feel guilty if you get erection or wet by imagining someone

Is Monogamy Unnatural? Is it a mental disorder to have sexual fantasies with someone other than your spouse? Should you ...

Meine Beziehung zu meinem Vater

Wenn Vater sagt, dass ich für dich tot bin! Stellen Sie sich meinen Geisteszustand vor, als ich Waise wurde, als ...

My relationship with my father

When father says that I am dead for you! Imagine my mental state when I became an orphan when my ...

पिता के साथ मेरा सम्बन्ध

जब पिता कह दे कि मैं मर गया तेरे लिए! कल्पना करें मेरी उस मानसिक दशा की जबकि मैं बाप ...

Neues Kapitel im Leben, Herausforderungen und Lektionen

Ich gehöre auch zu denen, die Indien vor sieben Jahren verlassen haben. Früher habe ich dort Geschäfte gemacht und Steuern ...

New chapter in life, challenges and lessons

I am also one of them who left India 7 years back. Used to do business there and used to ...

जीवन का नया अध्याय, चुनौतियाँ और सबक

मैं भी उनमें से एक हूँ. 7 साल पहले भारत छोड़ के चला गया. वहाँ व्यापार करता था और टैक्स ...

Sexuell missbrauchte elfjährige Schwester und mein Schuldgefühl, dass ich sie nicht retten konnte!

Ich hatte nur eine jüngere Schwester, Para. Sie hat uns vor 17 Jahren für immer verlassen, bei einem Autounfall auf ...

Leave a Reply