Jugaad The American Way

How the wife of a U.S. Ambassador and an envoy himself introduced simple techniques to help Indian workers

- Baljit Singh

A friend had mailed a copy of a newspaper article by U.S. Ambassador Kenneth I. Juster narrating how similar is the dogged air pollution in the National Capital Region to that Los Angeles suffered in 1943. The U.S. city mitigated the menace, harnessing the simplest of a few technologies but with perseverance stretching to 40 long years. Maybe, India could benefit from the LA experience, perhaps in just one decade.

My mind flashed back to Mr. Juster’s two predecessors in India.

Ambassador Chester Bowles’ wife, Dorothy Bowles, a regular visitor to the Chandni Chowk bazaar in New Delhi, once noticed a sanitation worker in considerable pain as she plied the broom.

It struck her that the short length of the broom made the sweepers almost double down from the waist and retain that posture for hours on end all their working life, leading to chronic spinal pain.