Nirai Kudam Neer Thalumbaadhu kurai kudam Koothadum
நிறை குடம் நீர் தளும்பாது. குரை குடம் கூத்தாடும்
Water From A Fully Filled Pot Will Not Spill Over.
Water In A Partially Filled Vessel Will Dance Wildly.
Let me share a personal story. This goes back to the early nineties of the last century when India had just two cars on the roads, the Hindustan Ambassador and the Premier Padmini. The car involved in this story was a Hindustan Ambassador.
We were driving down to Hyderabad when one of the front shock absorbers got off the mounting and made an infernal racket. The top end had made the holding hole larger and the holding nut was slipping through the hole. We drove on till we came to a small wayside town primarily catering to the nearby farms and found a mechanic sleeping under a thatch roof. We woke him up and when he saw what the problem was, he informed us that he would fix it in a jiffy, He simply took a smaller size nut and force turned it on the shaft to make the shaft narrower. He then put two metal washers on top and the bottom of the hole to make the hole smaller and reinserted the shock absorber and fixed it in place with a smaller nut along with a holding nut. I had that vehicle for five years after the event and nothing further needed to be done to that shock absorber ever till I had the car. For all his pains and the two new nuts that he put in, the mechanic took Rs.50/=, just under a dollar in current exchange rate. Before we could all get back into the car and drive away, he quietly went back to sleep in his little shack.
Imagine that mechanic with proper training and finance in a city. Every time I share this story with others, I get stories of similar nature that makes me wonder about the privileged lives that we live in urban India whereas remarkably resourceful people go unrecognised in rural India living subsistence lives.
Sad.
I have suggested this week’s LBC topic. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs. Maria, Pravin, Ashok and Shackman.