Repair --- don't replace

Appa !!!! for God’s sake please don’t be soo stingy!! Just throw that cover off and get a new one on line. It hardly costs you 300 bucks. My daughter screamed across the room at me, as she saw me struggling to repair my smart phone’s flip cover.

There was nothing too wrong with the cover of my smart phone. It was a flip cover and the flip cover had gotten unfastened from the silicon base partially. All that was needed was  Rs 5 worth of Fevikwik and some dexterity and Lo the flip cover was restored to its former glory. That, the former glory itself was a bit tattered is a different matter altogether. However, that’s a different story for another day.

Similar scenes play out in my house almost every other day. The antagonist is always me while the person expressing deep anguish could be my daughter, or my wife or my mother, or could be any possible combination of the three afore mentioned characters.

Mr Scrooge, Mr Miser, I have been frequently addressed as such and parsimonious, penny pinching, stingy are adjectives which have often been used in close proximity to my name. However, it doesn’t really bother me too much, for I come from a different era where in, if something was broken, you fixed it, you just didn’t replace it. This absolutely lackadaisical attitude of the current younger generation towards objects which have broken down functionally, or in many cases are functionally flawless but have been affected aesthetically, simply amazes me and, in many cases causes me deep anguish.

In my day and age, (No! I am not the anguished soul of a dead man, talking pre independence days here, more like the mid 70’s and 80’s.) money was a scarce commodity in most households. Consequently, if you were lucky enough to catch your father in a happy and reckless mood  (for the Gen Z to understand , this is akin to successfully buying a much sought after smart phone at 70% discount on deal of the day in the great Indian sale on Amazon) and did get him to buy you any toy or gadget, you were, at the very least, expected to keep it intact for the rest of your life. If you expected to be commended, you had to bequeath it in prime condition to your grandchild.

 However, this notwithstanding, the issue is no longer about money and affordability. We live in an age of instant gratification where everything is subject to a severely condensed timeframe. This senseless replacement of everything, has resulted in mountain loads of E waste and waste of everything.

Why would you just junk something which can be easily repaired and used for  years. Just because you can afford to replace it, is not a good enough reason.Why can’t people take the pains to understand the basics of how things work. Just the other day, when a relative of mine had visited us, a fairly new Blue ray DVD player of mine did not work just when I wanted to show off a bit. I was irritated to bits. The power did not come on. Frantic telephone calls to the service centre elicited a rather disdainful answer from the service technician at the other tend who responded with a snort in shock, when I told him that I wanted my DVD player to be serviced. He replied in the negative to put it mildly and professed to give me his unsought advice that I was better off buying a new one as the new models had far advanced features.

Since the power itself was not switching on, I surmised (with amazing deduction – Sherlock Homes beware) that it should be a minor issue with the power circuit. I took it to a friend of mine who could repair anything in this universe. (Have not tested him with something from beyond, hence this limitation.) Now this guy is too good to be true and just like your financial consultant advised you, in such cases, there is always a catch. He is virtually impossible to pin down. If you make the cardinal mistake of leaving any electronic device back with him, based on his very apparently credible assurance that you can collect it the next day, then, even God cannot save you, or rather your device, for it will get buried under a mountain of such devices awaiting delivery the next day . You will be lucky if you manage to retrieve it. 

Therefore, I had to pin him down and I did so on a Saturday afternoon. Leveraged all my brownie points and managed to get him to open the player. A detailed check confirmed that power was not getting past the power PCB and under normal circumstances all we needed to do was replace that PCB. However, with the Brand authorised Service centre not cooperating, I knew this was going to be futile. Hence, I had to goad my friend to check the components and find out the culprit. This genius friend of mine actually sniffed out the faulty component. He initially checked for any burn marks to see if any component had been burnt and when he could not find any apparent damage, he decided to use his olfactory nerves. He started sniffing the board rather vigorously. After shaking his head for a few minutes, he looked up rather despondently and accused me of having come too long after the event had occurred. The trail seemed to be cold. I pleaded guilty to not using the player for more than 6 months. About 5 minutes of vigorous sniffing which seemed to have caused clouds of dust to float from within the player housing, he came to the conclusion that either one of two capacitors seemed to be the culprit. He claimed to have sensed a faint burning odour, from the vicinity of both. He requested me to check and confirm and I hastily declined, stating that I would take his word for it, for I did not want to convulse in a sneezing bout with those layers of dust within the player housing. A few sniffs later he rather dejectedly told me that he was still not able to narrow it down and I would have to buy both if I wanted to avoid two trips to the electronic spare shop. When he told me that each is likely to cost Rs 10 in the shop nearby, but, if, I was ready to travel about 7 Kms more I could get it for Rs 5 each. I looked at him aghast as I thought to myself that I could get him a truck load of capacitors if they cost just 10 bucks a piece. Long story short, once the capacitors were replaced the player just purred into action and has been working flawlessly since then (More than a year – Fingers crossed.) Now, why would anyone junk a device which has some minor flaw in it.

 To further reiterate my point of view let me  narrate to you the story of my new Samsung Galaxy Tab which was dropped by a good Samaritan and ceased to work properly. The colours in the display were all smeared. A visit to the Samsung service centre and the guy almost dropped my device in surprise, stating that it was an imported model and they did not have any spares. I coaxed him into opening it to see if he could sort it out, After, paying the service charges, he opened it, looked at it for a minute or so, tugged a few wires and proclaimed that it was finished, the display had to be changed. The damage was, he estimated, in excess of Rs 15,000.

 I was shattered. In sheer desperation, since I was in Mount road, I decided to try my luck in Richtie Street. ( For the uninitiated guys, here you can buy or repair any electronic gadget under the sun – You can also get conned big time) I was directed to a small shop (if you could call a Table and chair under the staircase of a dilapidated structure one ) There was a young kid, all of maybe 18 years, with just shorts and bare bodied. I was at my wits end, but philosophised that I had nothing to lose.  On seeing my device, the kid arrogantly reeled off its model number and stated that I must have purchased it either in Dubai or Singapore. On observing the problem, he stated that it appeared to be a display issue. However, if I was agreeable, he would open it and check it out , Rather sceptically I asked him how much it would cost me. He looked at me hesitatingly and said that if he was successful in making it work, I could pay him Rs 200, if not I could give him something if I so desired. I told him to go ahead. He opened the device, unfastened all the circuit wires cleaned the connectors and put them back and lo the device was perfectly OK. The immense satisfaction that one gets, when one successfully, gets a gadget working perfectly again, has to be experienced to be believed.

While I can reel off a few more examples to drive home my point, I am also practical enough to understand that all such stories do not have a happy ever after ending. Yet the issue here is, we ought to make an effort. I have seen bags and back packs in mint condition thrown off because the zips have given way. In some cases, the issue is just the runner or even worse just the puller tab. This could apply to many expensive favourite dresses, Jackets, Pants etc. In most cases they can be restored to their full former glory after expending a princely sum of a hundred rupees or thereabouts. I have seen swanky gadgets junked, just because their rechargeable batteries have died.

This insatiable urge for instant gratification and lack of patience seems to be ingrained in the current generation’s mind set. It can, I think with enough justification, be extended to their attitude about most things in life. The lack of patience to rough and tough it out through a difficult period in a job, or life in general, or work through the incompatibilities in relationships.

Just because you are not subject to monetary limitations, does not, I believe, give you the moral right to junk perfectly usable objects., does not give you the right to waste away the Earth’s scarce resources.

So, the next time, the zip of a jacket peels off, the buckle of a sandal snaps , the handle of a bag or the strap of a backpack snaps the strap of a watch splits , or the smart phone or any gadget malfunctions, Please, Please do not reach out, to book a new one on an on line app. Just spend a few moments to dig deeper into the problem and seek a solution to the problem.

 Please Repair, don’t replace.