A Juhu mechanic and Shekar Kapur’s Blackberry

I have a grouse against  Shekhar Kapur.   He hasn’t named  in his blog the hole-in-the-wall mechanic in Juhu, Mumbai, who fixed his Blackberry.  Those accustomed to the gadget can’t live without it.  Mr Kapur, unable to find a service centre that could repair his handset, was on  way to buy a new one when he spotted a fading signboard that read – ‘Cellphoon reapars’ –  at Juhu Market.  On impulse,  he stopped the car in front of this 6’x’6′ hole in the wall,  to ask the boy minding the store,  ”Can you fix a blackberry ?”

‘ Of course ,  show me. What’s wrong with it ?”

‘Well, the roller track ball does not respond.  It’s kind of stuck and I cannot operate it”

He grabs it from my hand and looks at it – “You should wash your hands. Many customers have same problem. Roller ball get greasy and dirty, then no working”

To cut a longish post short,  the film-maker had his Blackberry fixed  within 10 minutes, while an authorised service centre guy had reckoned it would take a week – his Balckberry had to be sent to Bangalore for fault assessment and repair.

Mr Kapur’s post evoked  97 responses .   Col. Hanspal, Bangalore,  had this to say –  ‘In my restaurant I have an uneducated19 Year old Buhari dish-washer, who can strip any Nokia Phone,  make all sorts of download arrangements, very conversant with blue tooth and thorough with the Applications…”

Anshuman Acharya who blogs at  Bland Spice : ” Reminds me of the  makeshift electrician who repaired my inverter in an hour,  after the  company gave me a quote ten times higher and a time-line of few  months ;  still running after a year”.

Subhash Bhojwani recalled his road trip in 1972 when  “the broken gear lever retaining cap in my Fiat 1100 was fixed by a roadside  mechanic in Chitoor, while I was on way from Madras to Hyderabad . . .the young man re-engineered the …broken part within an hour, including the screw threads, …. (with)  well worn electric lathe and a hand held file. …it worked  till I sold the car 3 years later”.

Vivek Mundkar referred  to Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College in Rajasthan  where they teach the unlettered rural folk  skills in dentistry, solar engineering, computer repairs…. They get no degrees , but what they learn helps  improve their lives” .

Gaurav :  “When  my laptop’s power adapter broke down all the  well known dealers said there was no solution ; asked me to buy an adapter. A mechanic at a local repair shop used the jugaad technology to fix  my adapter..”

Rohit Mishra, computer engineering student in Vellore, and  blogger –  Moving Ahead :  ” If only we can get our  infrastructure right and provide  opportunities to compete,  to all, all sections of India can flourish”.

Murugan,  a Sydney-based finance professional , and blogger – Theta @ 4Hz :  “Around 30-40 million entrepreneurs –  a huge majority of them financed by their friends and relatives –  not through the regular financial  system. …. Now that you have written about him , Mr Kapur, how about going back to him and help expand his business? “