The Birth of Jugaad-Man

Superheros have always caught my fancy and I have forever had tremendous amount of admiration for them. Completely platonic form of admiration that is. I mean nothing weird or anything you know.

One thing that really amuses me about superheros is the disguise these guys have. I mean when Superman has to turn from his geeky alias of Clark Kent to well, Superman, all he really does is basically take of his glasses and do his hair a little. And every body around goes like, ‘Wow, who are you? That’s such a new face. We’ve never seen you before.’ Which is really a little strange u know, considering when I took off my glasses, did my hair differently, and then tried acting fresh with a girl she really did recognize me and even slapped me the next day and the day after that.

But what makes you think is that what would have Superman’s disguise been had he been in India. I mean maybe he would have had to just put on some deodorant and people would have gone like, ‘Wow, who are you? You don’t even have body odour. Are you even Indian?
Or maybe he would’ve just had a complete body wax. Then people would’ve gone like, ‘Wow, you’re not hairy. You really cannot be Indian. Are you Chinese? Will you stop working after few days? Are you here to take Arunachal Pradesh?’

But there’s really no way we can have an Indian well-respected Superhero. I mean think about it, what really is Superman’s biggest achievement?

(Now some of you might be tempted to answer that his greatest achievement he wears his underwear over his pyjamas, but on a serious note, that’s less of an achievement and more of a dressing style. I mean poor guy goes about saving the whole world and all, and the moment someone is asked about his greatest achievement, all we hear are stupid underwear on top jokes. Wearing underwear on top is not really an achievement, and I’m pretty sure even I could do it. I’d probably look very silly and people might stop talking to me, but that’s another story)

Coming back to the point, Superman’s greatest achievement was the fact that he managed to push the whole of earth and change planetary positions to save it from a speeding android. Which really is hardly a big deal here in India, because we all know if we pay Rs. 1100 to any goddam pandit he’ll not only change planetary positions, but even reverse the solar system, juggle a little with the planets, play football with them and god knows manage to do what all.

So for India, what we need is somebody customized for India. Somebody made for India. No superman n all that jazz, but somebody like Jugaad-man. Yes, a Jugaad-man, who would have Jugaadu solutions to every Indian problem.

For example, if Jugaad-man were to see a frustrated writer committing suicide out of depression, he’ll give him a Chetan Bhagat book to read. And soon the guy’ll realize how much of gift he has or how much better he is than some of the modern day literary geniuses. You see, a Jugadu and permanent solution custom-made for India.

To deal with the problem of eve-teasers and molesters, Jugaad-man’ll go and give them naked posters of Mayawati, which’ll just end their sex drive forever. You see, another jugaadu and permanent solution.

If someone’s making hate speeches on communal lines, our dear Jugaad-man’ll go and lock him up in a room with Navjot Sing Sidhu and Arnab Goswami for a whole day. After spending 24 long hours in a single room with these guys, the most verbose of the hate-speech givers would have lost their will to talk for good and will be pretty much zombies. Next day headlines, Jugaad-man saves the day.

For villager dying out of hunger because of a bad crop, jugaad-man will go and suggest them the unique solution of unlimited loan for which you don’t need to pay back. In form of Dowry. Displays complete out-of-the-box thinking you know.

Pretty soon we’ll start having slogans like ‘In Jugaad-man we trust’ or ‘It’s a cycle, it’s a rickshaw, no, it’s Jugaad-man on his Jugaad vehicle’.

More to follow on the amazing tales of Jugaad-man…watch this space…