From QuickFix to Sexy: the story of “Jugaad”

I flinched when I read the first International business magazine article mentioning the “great Indian tradition of jugaad“. WTF!, I thought to myself, must be a slow news week.

Look, I wasn’t born yesterday, and I know that when a Delhi-wallah says “kuch jugaad hai” (literally, “I have a  fix for that”) he actually means that he has a really quick, and really dirty way of fixing the problem. It could be the use of boiled potatoes as glue to fix torn kites. It could even be the use of a washing machine to make milk-shakes (Extra large, for the whole village). It may have been the use of photocopied “Samantha Fox concert” tickets! It could be anything that requires the cutting of corners, and a blatant pursuit of short term fixes. A Jugaad, in other words, is a junkie’s quick-fix. A matter, in the early 1980s, of great national shame…as in “We have a “chalta hai” and “jugaad” mentality, us Indians, chee chee!!”. Many newspaper editorials would bemoan this collective lack of social consciousness and quality focus.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the venerable newspaper, The Economist, decides to honor the word with an article on “innovation in emerging markets”. This is probably the last step in the gentrification of a low-class word. Jugaad will now be completely acceptable in board-rooms as a legitimate business strategy. Awards will be given out for grass-roots innovation. Entire movies (case in point- 3 Idiots) will laud the hero who creates something out of nothing through the power of Jugaad.

You can see where this is going. The same editors who bemoaned the collective lack of social consciousness, will now claim this as an ancient and venerable Indian tradition. “Arrey! These ancients were great, you see, and they put the funda of  jugaad into the way of life for us Indians. Such foresight”.

Suddenly, I feel the jugaadu in me rising. I’m an innovator, and being a frugal innovator gives me the right to use this newly minted uber-sexy word. I, Gaurav Rastogi, specialize in jugaad. You read it here first.

Just don’t tell my colleagues yet! Wait for the word to become sexier. Maybe an article in the Wall Street Journal!

Quote from The Economist:

Indians often see frugal innovation as their distinctive contribution to management thinking. They point to the national tradition of jugaad—meaning, roughly, making do with what you have and never giving up—and cite many examples of ordinary Indians solving seemingly insoluble problems.

Follow up post is here.