The door that says pull
Tara’s school in Bhubaneswar got a new library door in June. It is one tall sheet of glass, with a long steel bar across it.
On the first day, Tara took hold of the bar and pulled. The door did not move. She pushed, and it swung open.
On the second day she pulled again. And on the third. Each time her face went hot, and she pushed.
By Friday, Tara had decided she must be clumsy.
The idea
But Tara tests her hunches. It is what she does.
People who study made things have a short sentence for a week like hers.
The idea
When you fail at an object, suspect the object.
Take it in two halves.
To fail at an object is to ask a made thing to do something, and have it not happen. The door stays shut. The tap stays dry.
Tara keeps a card for hunches. On it she wrote her hunch: I think I am clumsy. Under that she wrote what would prove her wrong: other people pulling too.
At break she stood by a pillar and watched the library door. She counted everybody who came to it.
One clumsy person goes wrong in all sorts of ways. Here, nearly everybody went wrong the same way.
That is not ten clumsy people. That is one door.
To suspect a thing is to think it may be to blame, before you know for sure. So suspect the object means: look at the thing before you look at yourself.
Look at the door. A bar you can wrap your fingers round says pull. A flat plate says push. Your hand reads the shape before you think.
What a shape tells your hand to do is a cue. The library door’s bar gives the wrong cue.
Nobody gets the office door wrong. The children are the same. The shape is not.
What fixed it
Tara showed her card to Nayak sir, the librarian. He read it twice. Then he stood by the door himself for a whole break.
The next Monday, the steel bar was gone. In its place was a flat steel plate.
Nobody at the school had changed. The door had.
What people say instead
That Sunday, Tara and Maa met Mausi off the train. In the station washroom, Mausi twisted the tap. Nothing came.
She laughed about it on the bench, and Maa laughed with her. “I am hopeless with these new things, Tara. My hands only know the old taps.”
She was not upset. She has opened taps for sixty years.
Tara did not argue. She had twisted that tap too, and so had Maa. It opened only when you pressed it down.
One more place
The same thing turned up in the computer room.
Pritam filled in the science fair form. At the bottom were two buttons. One was big and bright blue. One was small and grey.
He pressed the bright one. The form went blank. Most of the row did the same. The bright one cleared it; the small grey one sent it. He filled it in three times.
Spot it
One more place. Look at it the way Tara would.
1
The gate of Tara’s building has a new latch, with a round knob on top. Tara watched eight visitors come in. Seven rattled the gate before it opened. Are the visitors careless?
2
What would you look at first? What does the latch tell a hand to do?
3
What would you write on Tara’s card, under What I think will happen?
Tara turned her card over. There was room on it for one more hunch. She wrote nothing yet. First, she watched the latch.
One shape, four things
The visitors were not careless. A knob on top says lift, so seven hands lifted it. The latch slides.
The door, the tap, the form and the latch are one shape. A thing’s shape tells hands what to do. When it tells them wrong, nearly everybody makes the same mistake.
So when you get a thing wrong, look at what its shape told you. Then look at whether others get it wrong the same way. Only then look at your hands.
Nobody in this chapter was clumsy. Not Tara, not Mausi, not Pritam, and not the visitors at the gate.
This week, at home
Find three things at home: a switch, a tap, a lid, a latch. Try each one with your eyes shut. Notice what its shape tells your hand before you turn it.
Maa once told Tara about Charaka, a doctor of long ago. When a whole town fell sick at once, he said, do not start with each sick body. Look at what they all share: the air, the water, the land, the season. Ten people pulling one door is that kind of sign. They all shared one thing: the bar.
The name
People who make things have a word for what a shape offers your hand. They call it an affordance. To afford, in this old sense, means to offer.
A bar affords pulling. A flat plate affords pushing. A knob on top affords lifting. Your hand reads an affordance before you do.
Last chapter, you saw that somebody decides every made thing. The shape of a handle is one of those decisions.
Tara’s first hunch is still on her card. It is crossed out, not rubbed out: I think I am clumsy.
Where you will see this next
Next chapter: a boy who practised at the nets every evening, and still could not hit the ball on match day.