There are some things that complete a home. One of them is the toolbox.
One of the first things I did soon after I began earning was to buy a toolbox. This was in 1992 when most young men like me with meagre salaries would think of savings and investments. But I? Ha-ha. I took the road less travelled and shocked my parents when I bought a toolbox, a proper one at that.
Each month a tool was added to the toolbox; most tools were bought from the flea market. Minor repairs followed, mostly tap leaks, and minor constructions too. I made a bird cage — about 1ˈ× 3ˈ× 4ˈ — in which we kept a couple of love birds, or budgerigars. Then I made a book rest. Knowing I have a toolbox with basic tools, the plumber comes without his own set, and the electrician or mason would not mind forgetting an important tool or two.
One rarely sees people doing “self-repair”. Middle-class circles think it is below their status to do repairs by themselves. Would I be wrong in saying that people who prefer to get repairs done when they can do it themselves are perhaps most in need of repair?
There are professional repairmen who may not like their job but yet must earn their livelihood repairing things. And there are amateurs who like to repair. What impression does an amateur give when he or she volunteers to do “self-repair”? Few will encourage. Some will urge you to seek help of a professional, some others will warn of ruin greater than repair, some will accuse you of destroying livelihoods and increasing unemployment, and others will advise a test to confirm lunacy. Anyone who sets out to do “self-repair” will soon realise that such cynical people actually fear something: they fear that others might succeed at what they did not even dare to imagine. This meant that they could do it themselves but did not because they feared failure, feared committing mistakes and appearing foolish.
As a society, are we afraid of admitting mistakes? This fear seems pan-Indian, do you agree? But we have a government that wants India to be atmanirbhar (self-reliant). Eh? What about people, Indians? Why is atmanirbharta (self-reliance) applied only to industries? Am I wrong in insisting that atmanirbharata should pervade our culture and not restricted to commerce? Children are out playing on streets during weekends and vacations. Why do parents not encourage them to learn some repair or manual labour? Why not learn basic two-wheeler and car maintenance, or even go to a construction site and learn basic things such as masonry, plumbing and electrical work?
There is a reluctance for “self-repair” and there seems a similar reluctance among professional repairmen but for entirely different reasons. Professionals desire to make quick money. This makes them impatient and lazy to think through a challenging problem. Such workers suggest replacement instead of repair.
Remember those moony ‘If I had a hammer…’ and ‘I’d rather be a hammer…’ songs? I suppose swords, spears, arrows and other weapons appear in songs across the world but perhaps the only tool I know that appears in songs is the hammer. There is also a hammer — martillo — beat for the bongo drums. But tools can become weapons.
One repair that I found amazing was watch repair. In those days of childhood, we used mechanical watches that needed servicing and repair. There were several such watch repairers. The inside of the watches never cease to amaze me even today. Such intricate engineering!
There are repairable things and unrepairable things, to the latter belong such things that could have been repaired but for some valid reason such as unavailability or high cost of spares the repair was not practical. But there are unrepairable things: things that simply cannot be repaired and once spoilt must be disposed, such as digital watches, electric shavers and some mobile phones.
Repairing can teach us many things: patience immediately comes to mind, and some humility perhaps. It can be a rich supplement to education, if not an education in itself. For this one must develop the toolbox, we’re born with: our body. Mere growth is no guarantee of development.
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