Meet local repairer Babu Lal. He identifies himself as an electrician and has close to 20 years of experience in dealing with different kinds of electrical equipment. He lives in New Delhi and works for an electrical shop in Bhogal, New Delhi.

What does your work mean to you?

To earn a livelihood and sustain.

Where did you learn to repair?

Here at the shop

In the current world, repairing is considered a good practice. People know that repairing is good, and throwing away the object is not the right way to do it. Does the coming generation realise the importance of your craft?

People come and get things repaired here. People have faith in our work and trust our repair. They know that the objects will work.

Why do people get things repaired?

Getting things repaired is cheaper as new machines are costly to purchase, so in less money they get their objects repaired and also in less money they can use that thing again.

What’s the oldest thing that you have repaired?

40-50 year’s old fans, ceiling fans.

Nowadays, is it challenging to repair new machinery, in your view?

technology now is very advanced; earlier, the technologies used were not that advanced, so repairing was more manageable, but now it isn’t easy to repair things. For example electronics, new technologies are used, which makes it tough to repair.

Repairing of our belongings is a good habit which should be encouraged over purchasing of new goods. Your comments?

We don’t think about this that much, our work is to repair things at the shop, and we do that. What’s the point in thinking about this, and if we even think about it, what will be achieved.