Chaos theory

My earlier blog, 'Of boisterous Indians....' wasn’t exactly singing eulogies of us Indians. When many friends shared their similar experiences, it didn't feel good; I wondered, surely, there are also nice things to write about India.  Of course, there are many nice things to write about India and Indians, more now than ever before.

During our visit to Japan a couple of months back, my husband and I met a tall, young Netherlander, a backpacker who had been around the globe and was camping in Japan for two weeks. Recognising us as Indians, he was keen on sharing his travel experiences in India. India, in his words, was an ‘extremely interesting place’— the country was so colourful and interesting that he claimed he could spends days sitting on the road side just watching people. But, the gush of pride we felt for our country was cut short by his following remark that, India was also very ‘chaotic’ and ‘a bit of a hassle’. Yes,” he repeated, “India, for all its charm is very chaotic”.

It is understandable that a Western mind home grown in one-culture and one-language would find India an incomprehensible enigma, a huge kaleidoscope that throws up bewildering patterns of diverse cultures, languages, ethnicity and people. 

In April 2014, NTT Docomo, the Japanese telecom player, decided to hang up its boots in India, bringing to an end its five-year partnership with Tata Teleservices Limited. One of the reasons cited for Docomo’s exit was that it could not cope with the regulatory uncertainty (following the cancellation of 122 telecom licences by India’s Apex Court) in the Indian telecom industry. Yet another outsider bamboozled by the ‘Indian’ way of functioning!

Uncertainty and chaos are really the same things.  And a linear approach is useless if one wants to make sense of ‘chaos’ and live with uncertainty.

Anyone familiar with chaos theory knows that there is an underlying order to chaos. And nothing can be truer for India. Behind all the apparent chaos, order (a.k.a system) exists; systems which may not be evident at once, but are nevertheless there and reveal themselves to those who bother to look for them.

So, what is the system I’m so upbeat about? Well, read on....

Recently, I wanted to have a copy of my house keys made. So, I approached one of the key makers who put out their wares and sell their skills on the roadside. In choosing this key maker, I exercised abundant caution and opted for a guy from the next suburb, so as to put maximum distance between him and my house!

But, when I reached the place, neither the key maker nor his shop was to be found.
Rule no: 1: Expect the unexpected!

A couple of guys hanging around pointed to me a card hanging from a tree nearby with his name and number on it. One of the guys, continuously working on the tobacco in his mouth, mimed to me asking me to call the number.

Rule no: 2: In India, when you are lost, don’t expect signboards to guide you to your destination; always look to people around for help. In most cases, they are more than willing to help you.  


Minutes after I called him, the guy turned up carrying a small suitcase. Inside the suitcase, he kept his tools neatly arranged. But, first, he produced a note book and asked me to write my address and phone number down and furnish my 'Aadhar' number as proof of residence. I was flabbergasted! After all the precaution that I had taken to keep my domicile a secret from him, here he was asking me to share that confidential information with him!

So, I asked him why he needed my coordinates.  He simply replied that the law required him to collect it. He then produced a permit granted to him by the local police station allowing him to carry on his key-making business in that locality. The fact that this guy, with no physical infrastructure that he could call a shop (other than his suitcase), had been given a legal sanction by the government authorities to do his ‘dhandha’ was a bit of a surprise. (But then, this is probably how licensed roadside hawkers operate.) 

What was more surprising was that the police had developed a simple system to keep a check on him and his client(s) by keeping track of the latter’s residential details. I would have never have expected an innocuous (not always) act as duplicate key-making to be in the radar of the law enforcers.

So, Rule no: 3: Systems reveal themselves if you dig deeper


I am sure, this is but one of many hidden systems we are unaware of, even as we cry ourselves hoarse about the lack of order in this country. On the contrary, Indians have worked out very smart and imaginative systems for their survival; if outsiders don’t understand them, well, what goes my father?!

My brother in the USA once narrated an incident about how one Friday, the faucet in his kitchen started to leak and he had to wait out the weekend before the plumber assigned for the apartment came and fixed it up.  All through the weekend, they lost gallons of water, as nobody other than the designated plumber was allowed to touch the faucet. Here also, there was a system at work, but, you could hardly call it a smart or a sustainable one, eh?