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My Friend Sancho
My first book, My Friend Sancho, was published in May 2009, and went on to become the biggest selling debut novel released that year in India. It is a contemporary love story set in Mumbai, and had earlier been longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. To learn more about the book, click here.
If you're interested, do join the Facebook group for My Friend Sancho
Click here for more about my publisher, Hachette India.
My posts on India Uncut about My Friend Sancho can be found here.
Recent entries
So it’s about 10.45pm, and we’re headed in a tourist taxi to Siena Village, a resort a few kilometres…
I don’t know why, but I find this kind of funny. And what’s with the quote marks in that…
Jonah Lehrer writes in Wired: Here’s a brain teaser: Your task is to move a single line so that…
So while everyone’s celebrating the arrival of Akhilesh Yadav and how he’s revitalised the Samajwadi Party and UP Politics,…
... is done. The next time India walk out to play a Test match, my favourite sportsman of all…
23 August, 2007
Why we don’t buy a mop
Here’s Aadisht Khanna on why household products in India are so badly designed:
[W]hy isn’t the customer looking for value in design? I think the answer lies in domestic servants. The Indian servant culture (stretching from visiting bais to stay-at-home cooks) means that the person who buys the product (the householder) is completely different from the person who uses the product (the servant). Since the buyer is not going to use the product, he sees no value in usability, and so always chases value in terms of price reductions instead. This can have horrible consequences for the person who has to use the badly designed product.
Example one: mopping. If we’re the ones wet-cleaning our floors, we go out and buy a mop. As long as the maid is around, we expect her to do it with a pochha, her back bent at a completely uncomfortable angle. The extra price you pay to avoid that uncomfortable posture is only a hundred and twenty rupees, but the cost-benefit ratio doesn’t even enter your head until it’s you who has to bear the cost and benefit.
Example two: kitchens. Specifically, my kitchen.
Read the full post, there’s some excellent thinking in there.
Posted by Amit Varma in
