My Home Fix-it-Guy & Kavita’s Superman – Ramtirat!

Written By: Anil Kapilashrami, Co-founder and CEO, roofontop.com

What is absolutely essential in a home is a good fix-it-guy.  Having a good fix-it-guy or handyman can be the deciding factor in whether you are able to have a relaxing and peaceful time at home or not. A handy handyman, at those crucial times when he is required, can be the difference between life and death.  Literally the oxygen for your house - without whom the house as well as You also may not be able to function.

He should be close by and be available whenever required for any mishap.  Whether it is a leaky roof, a clogged bathroom, a jammed door, cracked tiles or flooring or a sparking electrical socket or wire, the fix-it-man should be available to mend any of these.  He should primarily ensure that threat to life is secured and secondly that material damage is minimized. 

The handyman should be available 24 x 7, 365 days of the year, without any holidays.  No Diwali, Christmas, New Years or Independence day for this guy - Ok, maybe holi!

Your fix-it-guy should personally have hands-on experience in more than one discipline – carpentry, electrical, masonry, plumbing, flooring, and painting.  While he can’t be a hands-on expert in all areas, he must have an overall understanding of common issues that can occur in a house and how to deal with them. At least he should be able to hold the fort in case of an emergency till either help arrives, morning arrives, or till a permanent fix can be made.

My handyman or rather Kavita’s handyman, is an extremely interesting character called Ramtirat.  Of course interesting … what did you expect?

Whenever there is an issue at home that needs attending to who do Kavita and I call – no, not Ghost Busters, but Ramtirat.  Whether it be a leaky faucet, a damp wall, a smoking inverter or the terrace getting water logged Ramtirat appears and gets into action.  He is Kavita’s true Superman of suburbia! 

Ramtirat is a charismatic character who has energy well beyond his years.  He is well spoken and articulate, though not always in a language I understand and has amazing logical thinking and reasoning ability.

The amicable handyman is approximately 4 feet, 2 inches tall, dark in complexion, has curly black hair, a convincing smile and hails from the state of Bihar and is approximately 55+ years old – am not sure if he knows the exact age himself.

He comes to life when summoned by a call to his cell and quite often even when not summoned.  He arrives in a flash. He comes up with the most innovative and creative solutions to our problems.

He is able to diagnose problems within seconds and decide what action needs to be taken, what additional help may be required, which experts need to be consulted, if any, and can summon a work force of any size within a couple of hours.  As I said his solutions can be quite creative at times.

Once when I approached the house from work at approximately 8:20 pm, I noticed that the entire house exterior was lit up and there were approximately 10-12 workers visible.  As I parked in the driveway I saw that the exterior side wall of the house towards the kitchen was not there. Visible from the driveway were the pots and pans in the kitchen, the stove, cooking masalas and the kitchen sink.

With a bit of haste, I hustled inside the door of the house (which was still intact) looking for Kavita.  Of course I could have walked in through the kitchen but some decorum must be followed, I felt, when entering your own house wearing formals.  “Saab Ji, Namaste”, I was greeted with folded arms and a sweet smile by none other than Ramtirat.  He usually smiled when he demolished my home or was making money from me. While I adored his smile, I knew it was gonna cost me.  “Yeh sub kya ho raha hai”, I asked him.

One of the many explanations swirling in my mind was that Kavita had finally begun the much dreaded project of converting our 20 year old, 2-storey, pre-constructed house into a vaastu complaint one. Unfortunately we were a bit ignorant of this science when we bought the house.  Now 20 years later, with 2 children, many friends, careers and many successful startups, Kavita, also now an experienced astrologer, wanted us to glide through the good life and turn the tables on our misfortunes.  Is this why I didn’t have a kitchen wall today?  How will we sleep? – won’t the mosquitoes have a field day?…anyway…But everything is in the wrong direction – kitchen, bedroom, bathrooms… will a new wall disappear everytime I approach the driveway; will I be left only with a roof on top (hee hee) - the thoughts wouldn’t stop.

“Madam kahan hain?”,I demanded.  “She’s gone to the market”, was the reply.  “Dewaar kahan gayi?”  “Tore di”, was Kavita’s superman’s answer!  “I know tore di, lekin kyuoooo?”, I gently demanded.  This was how most of our interactions were.  It usually took us about 3-5 minutes to connect; the warmup time was treacherous – like a dentist’s visit or pulling your hair out.

Anyway, after the jostling back and forth, finally the story came out.  There was a rat in the ground floor which was housed in the kitchen.  Multiple attempts including re-“gharoting”, which I have understood to mean re-cementing a hole like in a drain, etc using cement and some other mixture, rat traps, poison,  and various other creative solutions have been tried.  But this time the rat(s) had shifted their home from the drain to the kitchen shelves.  And apparently were spread out everywhere on the right sidewall of the kitchen.  It was decided that the wood shelves would have to go and since the wall was old and needed cement repair before painting that it would be best to rip out the wall as well.

Soon Kavita arrived home with carry-out Chinese, her favourite.  After fifteen minutes of a three-way discussion and my understanding of the problem, with my limited knowledge, I would have taken a slightly different approach.  I would have unscrewed 4 drawer holders and taken out 5 shelves, applied some rat poison paste and re-cemented the walls and been back in business – maybe Rs. 750 maximum and 2 hours work (and 14 hours to also allow the cement to dry properly) versus what seemed Rs. 3,500 and probably 3 days (including painting the wall).  Of course the Rs. 3,500 was a total guess as estimating the cost (and duration) of work was not Ramtirat’s forte – he was a true artist – a modern day kalakar, not to be bothered by things like schedules, estimates, etc.  Anyway, when I dared to give Ramtirat this solution, he smiled and I can swear I saw a glimmer in his eye as he said, “Nahi, sirji, whoh toh permamment solution nahi hota”. Wait, I think, no I am sure, I recognized the glimmer in his eye whenever he’s got me – when I’m travelling out of town or too busy to discuss things with him as I’m rushing out to work – and has managed to turn a small problem into a project.

Many a time, a leak in the sink and some dampness in the wall has become an opportunity for him to remodel the bathroom, two hair line cracks in the terrace have become a 15-day exercise where the entire terrace was unusable as the space between the 2’ x 2’ tiles was re-chauked (though Ramtirat has a much fancier term that I can’t recall).  To lesser mortalswho have not had their own personal Superman to educate them, this is the thin white stuff between tiles that keeps water and other liquid substances from seeping through the tiles.  On another occasion when the boys and I managed to drive a basketball through the 1st floor Puja room window, replacing a window pane turned into a project where all window frames were ripped out, new ones made and re-installed along with new “toughened glass”.  As if this was not enough, the manufacturing of the window frames was done in-house – my house!  So I had the pleasure of interacting with Ramtirat and umpteen numbers of workers at any time of the day, whether I wanted to or not.

And he made sure that I knew the progress daily, whether I wanted to or not.  A typical interaction would go something like this.  Without fail, as I would try to grab a quick mandatory breakfast before running out the door, Ramtirat would appear out of nowhere and begin to tell me the progress of the previous day.  “Sir Ji, dhancha bun gaya hai, bus ab to khali lagana baki hai”.  Great, Ramtirat, how much more time?  “Bus, ab do char din mai ho jayega”, he would respond.  Then when I would inquire about the sequential tasks that needed to be done - the installation of the window frames (the dhancha), the actual glass being fitted on the frame, and the handle and locks - I would realize that the “do char din” actually equated to 12 days and that was if all went like clockwork – all labour showing up each day, the glass guy providing the cut glass on time, etc. Of course this never happens, so realistically I estimated about 15-16 days.  If you remember the original issue was of the basketball hitting the window and would have actually cost me Rs. 1100 and about fifteen minutes of installation.  The basketball hoop in the driveway was out of commission for the 3 of us boys for quite some time now – not enforced by the usual enforcer, Kavita, but rather by me!

Also, Ramtirat had the uncanny habit of catching me whenever I was in a rush.  And he would insist on explaining the progress of the work and demonstrating how he has gotten the best deal from the retailers on any product, how he has caught other workers in doing low quality work and overall proving how he is le man - the superman.  When I would say, “Thik hai, time par ho gayega na; kaam thik chal raha hai; problem phir to nahi aayega?”,he would respond, “Haan Sir Ji, aaeye, apko dikata hun”.  When I would tell him that it’s Ok, I had to run and he should just take care that the work is happening well and on time.  He would insist, block my way to the car and gently nudge me towards the inflicted area of the house.  He would get into details of how the cement used has been mixed just right, how the water has been poured, how this was the ultimate solution to, quite often, a recurring problem.  “Nahi, aap samajhyai”, he would demand, as he would demonstrate his superior thinking, problem solving and execution abilities.  There was no choice in the matter, work and meetings at the office would just have to wait, Ramtirat was in charge!

Oh and if I upset Ramtirat, he would not eat our chapatis for lunch and I would hear about it in the evening. So I had to be very very careful not to hurt his sentiments.  “Bahut barya Ramtirat, aise he kaam karte raho”, I would say and try to run towards the car.  Of course what I wanted to say was, “aglai janam mai, kash mai bhi Ramtirat banta to chandi hi chandi”.  However by now with the numerous interactions Ramtirat and I have had, he may pick up that I am being sarcastic and I couldn’t risk hearing about it from my beloved Kavita in the dining table.  So as I am forced to do often at work, I bit my tongue, ignored my thoughts and tried to think new “nice” thoughts.

Anyway, I do thank my lucky stars that he is around to solve our emergencies and overall we don’t have it so bad, at least compared to one of our friends, Miyasha.  Ramtirat is, if I must confess, originally Miyasha’s superman and still continues to be.  She is the one who introduced us to him.  Miyasha has a beautiful custom-made home in Shushant Lok, who’s interior and exterior have been planned to perfection.  She keeps the house absolutely immaculate.  

Now while people say that I have been known for exaggeration, but I kid you not here -I’ve seen Miyasha’s beautiful Swedish wooden flooring (not the cheap slab stuff, the expensive actual wood stuff) in the living room and/or dining room flooring literally ripped out 2 times within a year due to termite infestation.  Some treatment is done and new, equally expensive flooring, is reinstalled.  The same has happened with her kitchen woodwork and even the 1st floor bedroom cupboards – she doesn’t have almirahs.  Ramtirat knows every area within that house as he was sort of a self-appointed Quality inspector/manager when it was constructed from scratch, finding faults with the contractor and labour and volunteering valuable inputs.  

Seven out of ten times when visiting Misha’s home we can be sure to find Ramtirat running a mini or major project and totally in charge of the labour running about.

Among Ramtirat’s great sayings, or Ramtirat-isms as I fondly refer to them are:

• When it is decided to meet at a certain time and place to either begin some work or to discuss the work, he often says, “Mauke pe chaunk jaonga”,   - which I have been able to best decipher to mean that he will arrive at a specific time at the location where the work is required to be done, usually my home.
• Another doosey you hear from him when he is convincing Kavita to paint our house or to polish the furniture or generally to spend money is “looookh aa jayega” or “get-upaa jayega” – meaning that the proposed work will make the house or specific area look much better or much more appealing.  And we should spend the money without a second thought.
• “Permamment” refers to not a flavor of chewing gum but to something that is not temporary, but good quality and will last.  This is usually said every time he is convincing us to redo work based on a previous fix not working – apparently that was not “permamment”.  “Do it right the first time” or 6-Sigma Quality was not in his book of learnings or teachings.  But there was clearly a reason for this.

On Sundays or days that I am a bit more relaxed, I occasionally do have philosophical business related discussions with Ramtirat.  We discuss business models and usually I learn a lot from these interactions – a clear lesson that text book knowledge does not stand anywhere when compared to practical, on the job knowledge.

On one occasion we discussed the difference between project work and the importance of annuity revenue. I let him know that my company at that time provided services to Customers that would be fixed time in duration and would be for a set fee – project revenue, I referred to it as.  And the other kind of revenue would be when we would do, for example, annual technical maintenance for corporate Customers, like manage their technology and internet infrastructure.  The annual maintenance would be for a set fee annually and would continue year on year.  So risk free continued earnings throughout the year and approaching years as well.  I explained to him that while project work may be more interesting to our engineers/workers the annual contract was risk averse and brought more guaranteed revenue and paid the bills.

We discussed great writings like, The Mythical Man Month by Frederick P. Brooks Jr, which talks about how to control run-on projects and overall project management.  I acknowledged Ramtirat in his expertise in being able to take emergency work, turn it into projects and then turn the projects into annuity revenue.  He had the knack of doing the work in such a manner that annuity revenue and new projects were assured through the year – work, rework, and more work.  I told him how we have been trying to replicate his fine-tuned model at our technology based services company.  Again, I saw the glimmer in his eye as both of us raised our cups of warm tea and saluted in the air. I think I managed to get my point across in a friendly manner with tea and biscuits, without fear of having to hear about it in the dinner table from my beloved. This Ramtirat was a smart cookie; he smiled widely and after this interaction I actually got a bit of a bow as he folded his hands together, said “Namaste sir ji” and headed out the rear balcony door.  As he left, again I know that I spotted a glimmer in his eyes.

So here’s to fix-it-men, handymen, or our domestic Supermen.  Life would certainly not be the same without them.  It’s kind of like what we say about our spouses at times, “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them”.

Hail to our local Superhero – the handy-man!