Economics 101

Perhaps as a result of the caste system, people's roles here are very well defined. Multi-tasking is not a commonly employed concept. The driver drives, the cleaner cleans, the sweeper sweeps, the cook cooks and the stair cleaner cleans the stairs. When William Dalrimple (of the City of Djinns) suggests to his landlady that he only employ one person to clean his very small apartment, she looks at him disdainfully and sniffs "That is very modern." I had a henna treatment on my hair. It took three people to dry my hair - one to hold the brush, one to hold the straightener and the other to hold the hair dryer. I kid you not.

This is obviously affordable because of the wealth of people in India and subsequent cheap labour. In Economics 101, one of the first things we learnt about was the relationship between labour and capital (technology). The more labour you have, the cheaper it is and the less capital you require and vice versa. Thus developing and highly populated countries are often a source of cheap labour and it can often makes more business sense for something in a developing country to be manually operated than automated.

Case in point:

On Sunday I took Chanda to the South African stand at the Commonwealth Milla for a sorely missed and rather delicious boerewors roll. She is now a fan. As we were wondering around the fair happily chomping on our rolls and sipping on our Appletisers we walked past a Ferris Wheel. On closer inspection we realised that it was manually operated! Three men were in the middle running to keep the wheel spinning. A little like a hamster on a wheel.

I can't help but notice that even the basic technology such as the processes that people employ here are are often very unevolved. For example, the brooms they use do not have handles so the sweeper has to double over in order to sweep. Surely a lever/handle would make the effort required for this chore decidedly less? I drove past a building site the other day where there was not a piece of machinery in sight. There was however one worker clearing out rubble in a container the size of a kitchen mixing bowl. A little like trying to move Table Mountain to the Cape Flats with a teaspoon?

The last thing I want to do is foist western ways of doing things onto a centuries old civilisation. Maybe I'm just being a typical management consultant and trying to make everything more efficient.