An amazing thing happened when a friend and I stopped at a Madras pavement shop to have a soft drink. A pavement shop is an illegal construct that survives only with the collusion of officials. Every three months or so, such shops are razed down. After negotiating increased bribes to the policemen, the shops' owners erect the stalls again. A pavement shop owner is in a precarious business.
Well, we stopped at the pavement shop for a soft drink. I was surprised to receive a computer-generated receipt. "Why a computer?," I asked the fellow incredulously. He explained that the computer not only enabled him to keep accounts, it helped him manage his inventory as well, allowing him to forecast his business better. A pavement shop!
Such individuality and acceptance of technology is more the rule than the exception. In a country where citizens can not depend on the city to provide drinking water, every house has a borewell. The affluent even have water-filtering systems. Since voltages often dip below the officially stated 220V, everybody and his brother protects major appliances with voltage boosters. With electricity itself so unreliable, people buy "emergency lanterns" that provide light out of charged-up energy when the power goes off. It says something that such lanterns are not even sold in stores in the United States.
The next time some one says American institions are horrible, gently remind him that there are countries in the world where the government really doesn't work and where citizens really have to fend for themselves.
