The curious case of the product design after-parties
It has been a ritual of sorts in our Lobhi village to celebrate every successful product completion by the children with a house party. The ritual once started with us inviting the kids one day to make fryums of different shapes, inviting their parents as well for a cup of tea.
It gradually evolved into those occasional riverside dips after the projects get completed. Having those buttermilk shakes by our side, we would collectively dip our feet into the ponds to get a free fish pedicure, eagerly expecting those pesky beings to nibble into the spaces between our toes while we squiggle them.
Children do need that feedback of accomplishment, some positive reinforcement to keep the ball rolling.
For one after-party, I was however tempted to experiment with something the villagers would have never tasted before. As an engineer, your mind always tends to back-calculate and optimize. And so I was thinking — What could be the cheapest and most easily preparable cuisine which could be made with the most commonly available vegetable? And yet is quite foreign and innovative to make?
It could only be french fries. It had to be. After deciding, we quickly plucked some homegrown organic potatoes from Satish’ house (perks of living the village life) and start frying them to cater to our guests who had come.
They still had some preconceived notions initially on how these aloo variants differed from aloo chips. I had to load some Google images of the fries to show them the difference. I then explained them the difference between fries and chips, how french fries combine the unique crunchy upper crust with the soft and mushy inner layer.
However, I couldn’t bear the oddity with which the kids were saying ‘French fries’ as — ‘Pprench Pries’.
‘It is French… Fa Fa… French fries’. Not Prrench.
I then consciously observe how I am saying french fries and how it is different from theirs. I notice that they are not able to touch their teeth on the lower lip without letting the upper lip meddle with the sound.
The evil upper lip.
I repeat the sound in slow motion — ‘Fffffffffreeeeeencch FFffffrries’. As a teacher and being quite annoyed with the stress on the letter P, I exercised my right to give impositions to students by telling them to repeat ‘French fries’ 20 odd times.
But to no avail.
So I tell them to hold their upper lip and try to repeat the magical words. The upper lip was still trying so hard to kiss the feet of the lower lip to make the fa sound like pa. But the kids were pulling it tight and it was not successful in its attempt. The trick actually worked.
By the time they had got the spelling right, French fries were ready. There was another party weeks later. Pratik (eighth grade) had made a marble roller coaster to test out concepts related to potential and kinetic energy. Tikaram (seventh grade) had successfully demonstrated a load bearing mechanism using ice cream stick trusses. This time they all got together to make the fries. The only difference was that the fries were much spicier to cater to the Maharashtrian taste buds.
It was a perfect Lobhi-esque moment. We were laughing our hearts out, sitting together in circles and exchanging fries. Only this time we were exchanging french fries and not prench pries.
One might slightly be confused as to what this teacher-student bonhomie might entail.
The ritual, in this case — The after party could have been continued out of it becoming occasional. Or just for the heck of it. However, we choose to do it every other time as it sufficiently met two of our main objectives —
Giving positive reinforcement for kids to develop technological interventions required by the community.
Making the parents feel proud of what the kids have made.
And what would that achieve?
Making the parents feel proud of their children?
Of course, the kids get more encouragement from their parents, but more than that, they get positive word of mouth for their product they are developing.
Acceptability is a big big issue. There is no point building the most efficient optimized product which is not going to be purchased by anyone. So the only way to tackle that is through positive word of mouth.
Your product will be purchased because the person’s maamaji’s wife seems to have a good appreciation for the product. Or when everyone surrounding his house seems to have purchased the product and are happy with it. In the majority of the cases, It will be purchased not because they themselves like it.
With one strategic move of inviting the family members for a house party, it could serve both these functions. In conclusion, more after-parties in rural areas!
dHive Rural Design Studio is a social initiative focused on enabling rural youth to develop appropriate technologies using locally available resources.
