Mouse

Some days ago, my dad came to me with a complaint.

“I have been telling you take more care of your laptop. You have never listened, now see it is spoilt”.

Now even though I agree that my laptop needed more care than it got, my father would always find my effort less than desirable. He wanted me to treat a laptop like a desktop with its own proper place. So when he said it was spoilt, it was with doubt and surprise than I came over.

I - “What happened?”

Father – “Look nothing is working”

It turned out that the USB mouse was not fully responding. Flexing the wire revealed that there was some problem with the wire near where it went into the mouse. So the solution was easy; open the cover, cut the damaged portion and reattach the wires. So a 20~ 30 rs fix would put the mouse back into action.

But when I went to the electronics repair guy near my house, there was a shock awaiting me. The shopkeeper said that the work was pain and suggested I buy a new one instead. I imagined that he wanted to sell me a new one and make more money. So, I asked him if he had a new one. He did not and suggested that it is cheaper to buy anew one. That left me with lot of questions.

1. This guy is not a part seller and is exclusively a repairer. If he sent me away, how does he make money?
2. Did he really expect me to take his advice? Do people take such advices?

Almost everyone with a portable music player has gone through a new head/earphone every year. Sometimes I suspect whether the manufacturers deliberately design them to fail with weak connections and thin wires. The internet reveals that they can be easily repaired by anyone with a solder gun. But they are still thrown away due to lack of will and lack for repairers. We criticize “the western culture” for its “use and throw” behaviour. Lacking the income of those countries, what justification do we have for this wasteful conduct? Or is it another example of the haves –have nots difference in India?

PS: If anyone knows of a repairer in South-west Bangalore who will repair my USB mouse (and broken headphones), please leave a comment with the contact.