Quest for the ultimate Dustbuster

I have to get this out of my system.

Let me first give you the low down here.

For the past 5 months, I’ve been desperately looking to buy a replacement for my broken vacuum cleaner(VC).I am now in a miserable predicament. On one hand, I have to do all the dusting employing my own (wo)manual labour and two, I am allergic to dust, not to mention brooms, mops and other cleaning widgets. And having your decrepit house in one of the most polluted suburbs and adjacent to a mud slinging play-ground doesn’t really help.

My VC hunting began with quite a fanfare: comparing models/brand on the net, visiting all the electronic havens and malls in the neighborhood, etc. Almost every gadget-mall had its USP, no, not Selling Proposition but "Special Price" on the items. But what left me cold was despite having mammoth shop space, these so called malls had not even a little room to accomodate, say atleast 2 brands of VCs on the shelf. Most of the shops had only one brand, the prominent Indian brand, carrying Archimedes’ legacy. So much for patriotism. Of course with more& more people (read parvenu) going for LCDs, Microwaves, ACs & Dishwashers, a VC for a measly 3000 Rs may not command any shop space or retail margin.

While my broken VC was made by an reputed Indian Electronics giant, once mostly patronized by people Below Poverty Line, I looked out for more recent entrants in this segment, like the ones which promise to make your Life Good and all. And of course there is the world leader, in the name of an Ex-president of USA. There are several other third rate brands, that you can buy off the TV, use for dusting and throw into the dustbin the third day.

Basically, I looked for a VC fitting into these mimimal specs:
1. Weight – less than 5 kg
2. Suction cum Blower function (with variable-power option)
3. Wattage- 1000 or less
4. Cord -Atleast 5 Mtrs
5. Dust Bag- Permanent, washable and atleast of 3 Ltrs capacity
6. Three pin plug for safety
7. Cost upto Rs 4,000

Innocuous it may seem, but none of the VCs that are currently in the market conform to these. Then I went into research mode & checked out the sites of the three major brands I have alluded to in earlier:

The current models from the land of Taekwondo have no Blower function. I did have an old pamphlet from a shopping exhibition mentioning of a model containing all the specs I wanted. None of the local showrooms had it. When asked , the local sales manager replied that model has since been discontinued (for some Godonlyknowsit reason). He went on and segued into pitching for models from rival brand that I should go for. Some mole he was !

The lone Indian Company spearheading cleanliness revolution in homes & drinking water surprisingly has no model with a 3 pin plug and weighing less than 6 Kg with the above features. What kind of heavy machinery operates in 2 pin? I don’t want to get electrocuted and I surely I don‘t come with a warranty card!

Utterly disappointed, I came crawling back to my old VC maker and was pleasantly surprised to find 2 new models on the site , which even facilitated online purchase. Alas, the site was “outdated’ as confirmed by the local sales rep. It seems they no more manufactured/dealt with VCs as they went for greener pastures and they have a new site in place, only that the old site was not yet taken off the web. How Generous! Good ploy to snatch credit card payments online from unsuspecting customers and pay for court battles between the Corporate patriarch & his Son-in law. Bravo!

Moral of the story:
MNCs companies dump their outdated technologies on the Indian populace. Indian companies have the best technologies but don’t know how to market it to the populace!

I don't believe in employing labour for domestic service. Here I am with no vacuum cleaner in hand, and only my bare hands to bust the dust. I think I may have to carry on this till I bite the dust. Thank you for listening!

P.s: I hate mud slinging as it's me who has to do the clean-up. So I have intentionally kept away from mentioning brand/Company names and leave the guessing to your imagination!!!