CCC - Car Cleaner Cartel

You don’t have to be an expert in economics to know that the automobile industry in India has grown like crazy in the last decade and more, with the 4-wheeler segment making significant strides in terms of volume. A relatively undocumented offshoot of this is the job opportunities it has created for non-car owners. There are more mechanics, more puncture shops, more drivers and most importantly, a lot of car cleaners.

I first observed this in 2003, when I used to carpool with a friend of mine who lived in a high-rise apartment. There used to be around 50 cars in that complex and my friend pointed me to a guy cleaning one of the cars and told me that he was the watchman; one who took up an additional job that paid him well and was co-located with the place of his main job.

For a long time, I used to be hell bent on cleaning my car on my own, but there was a limit to how long I could procrastinate enjoying laziness (is there an oxymoron somewhere there?).  I too started using the services of the local guys who cleaned cars and this is going on now for a long time.

Most of these guys are actually kids in their late teens and take up this work in the morning, before leaving to school/college. But in the last one year, I have a much older guy doing the job and he was definitely doing a much better job than any of the other guys before. For reasons better known to him, the guy has been absconding from July and though some people have spotted him in the neighbourhood, he hasn’t come back to this car cleaning job.

So, we had to reach out to the local kids and that is when we found out about the existence of a cartel; a Car Cleaning Cartel. Apparently, there is a youngster in his early 20s who scouts our adjoining 5-6 streets and identifies cars that need to be cleaned. He then reaches out to the owners and offers his services and quotes a rate. When the owner checks with his friend in the next building, he pretty much hears the same rate and decides to employ him.

But on the day of the job, this youngster brings along a friend who proceeds to clean the car. And then on, this kid is tagged to this house and car. At the end of the month, the car owner pays this kid his monthly pay and the kid, gives a subscription fee to the youngster who brought him this job! When this kid needs to take a day off, one of his friends, who is also in that youngster’s net, shows up and ensures that the car owner never has to deduct a day’s salary.

This looks and sounds (and probably is) like the way the mafia works. Or how, a monopoly market is created. Anybody who needs to have their car cleaned has to reach out to this cartel. If not, you have to search high and low to find a cleaner and even if you do, on days that person is on leave, you have a dirty car. Not so, if you use the cartel. They ensure that someone always shows up at your doorstep and in matter of 7-8 minutes, leave you with a less dirty car. 

Matching color

This is a good initiative from the Government, but somehow I feel a green colored board should have been used to promote greenery. Not a pale-blue board.

Its better to be back

2 weeks back, I blogged about how it was good to be back. While I continued using my bedroom to setup my Internet connection, the lack of a proper table-chair setup meant that I couldn't spend too much time with the laptop.

But now that the painters have handed over the house to us, albeit with a few minor pieces of work still pending, I was able to return to my office room this morning. I setup everything the way it was and have actually gone a step ahead in installing the Cambridge sound system that I have, in one of the shelves.

Yesterday, I hunted for a piece of plastic pipe which I planned to use in the table. The purpose of the pipe was to let most of the wires run through it, just so that the table looks less cluttered. I got hold of an old mop and cut out an 8" piece. I put it to use this morning and instantly realised that while my idea was probably good, it wasn't great. Most of the wires connecting to the power outlets had huge plugs or connecting points that wouldn't go through the tube. Similar was the case with many of the wires connecting to/from the computer.

In the end I was able to put in some 4 wires into the pipe. Moreover, the 8" length doesn't seem to serve the purpose either, since I still find a whole lot of wires strewn around table. I really hope that some day I can live in a world without wires!

But at any rate, I feel happy that I've returned to my office room!

Homework

I didnt go to work on Friday since there was a need to clean out rooms in my house, as the painters were expected to move to the inside of the house.

I cleared out couple of shelves in the cupboard of my room. These were basically being used by me as a glorified dumping yard. Some of the things I was able to recover from these shelves included:
* 2 tennis racquets (one is my friend's)
* 1 small cricket bat - free compliment for buying Boost
* Carrom board coins - an entire set
* Chess coins - entire set
* Nylon hammock
* Some 100 ruppees in coins, stored in a box
* A wallet I used in College - it became dust when I touched it
* A backpack I bought in USA - it doubles up as a stroller
* Voltage converters - 220->110 or the other way actually
* Lots of used clothes ready for disposal

Thankfully, I don't have much evidence left of my teenage years (if you know what I mean), so I didn't have a difficult time in involving my parents in the clean-up process. Yesterday too, there was a lot of cleaning work that took place in my room and also my parents' room. I lugged a lot of things from the lofts upstairs to the loft in my Office room downstairs.

Today, as a continuation of the process, I was handed a big stack of papers to be shred. These were basically a collection of horoscopes that have been sent to us for our perusal. We do this exercise quite periodically and this one was done after a good gap of almost a year and a half I think. I managed to fill up around 80% of a 20 litre bucket, with the shredded paper.

I took a self-timed picture of me in my cleaning mask today. If I'd taken a picture yesterday, it would have had more impact on the reader since I was sweating profusely and had strands of cobwebs on me. But today was more of a sophisticated cleaning and I wore the mask only to avoid the paper dust.


And btw, this is how my house looks now after the Primer. Makes me think if I should leave it like this itself.