MUCH as we might despise the imperialist swine and their running dogs, it’s got to be said they’ve got customer service down pat. All a conspiracy no doubt to convert the world to western ways, a plot aided and abetted by Mossad and egged on by the CIA and closet capitalists from the Stasi. Still, it makes for a pleasant change.

Not that it’s rocket science, really, admitting that the customer is right. Geriatric lettuce in your bland, processed meat patty on a bun? Sorry, we’ll deliver another one. Fries not hot enough? No problem, here’s a piping bagful for you to dig in to till you keel over from heart congestion shortly after lunch. That’s my idea of service.

It pays to keep your customers happy but this simple logic is lost on the majority of our homegrown entrepreneurs. For them, any show of dissatisfaction from the customer must be fought tooth and nail. It’s a point of honour.

That’s why if I ever run into Rana Rashid Mahmood of Lahore I will shake his hand with a warmth I haven’t shown, or felt for that matter, since the summer of ’87. If wearing a cap, I shall bare the head in reverence. Here, nature might stand up and say to all the world, is a man. He took on the swine who sell shoddy products and pursued his adversary relentlessly through the courts with a single-mindedness of purpose rarely seen in this lax age. And won.

Rana Rashid was sold a defective split-unit air conditioner, a lemon by all accounts from day one. When the appliance refused to work properly even after key components, including the compressor, had been changed, he demanded a new piece. The retailer flatly refused, little knowing what he was up against. In the end Rana Rashid got his money back, and more, as ordered by a judiciary that gets more upstanding by the day.

Ponder also the ‘aisa he hota hai’ syndrome. When I wondered aloud where one could be found, the studiously cynical better half warned me that there is no such thing as a good plumber. But the heart bowed down with woe to weakest hope will cling; besides there was all that water gushing all over the place. Fine for Kevin Costner but inconvenient for the rest of us.

So the man came in, banged about aimlessly for a while, randomly smashed tiles with the primal joy that comes with destroying other people’s property and, quite miraculously, managed to staunch the flow.

Inspecting the remains, I saw that a pipe was dripping at the joint. This should be fixed, it was pointed out. No, no need, aisa he hota hai, was the response, followed by zang kha kay theek hau jaey ga. And there the matter ended, despite my protestations.

Take the case of the Chinese restaurant that does a roaring trade near the sea in Clifton. A few years ago, seated in this establishment with cavernous rooms, we could smell our starting entrée even as it made its way to the table. The olfactory assault, mind you, wasn’t of the salivatory kind.

Something, clearly, was rotten in the state of the hot and sour soup. Those must be the prawns, came the explanation, followed by — you guessed it — prawns aisay he hotay ain. The request to take the dish back was turned down and the helpmeet, familiar with my hidden depths, hustled us out of there before I started saying it with soup.

To my lasting regret, we paid for the untouched meal on the way out, with more than just a dash of petulance and an air of detached superiority. Flinging pearls before swine, if you know what I mean.

Much as I applaud the upward mobility of the lower-middle classes, I suspect this pongy state of affairs may have something to do with the new-found purchasing power of those who have only recently made the acquaintance of prawns, jumbo or otherwise. Aisay he hotay ain. Of course, let’s dig in. Kitna maza aaraha hai. Abbu, phir kab aain gey?

Also at fault is the misplaced civility of those too squeamish to stand up for their rights as consumers. No one who is brought up well likes to create a scene but there ought to be a limit, really, to the nonsense we disregard on a daily basis. Like KESC.

It’s interesting — well, to me anyway — that quality and consistency still apply, by and large, to the food vended at the street level. There, complaints are at least addressed and, if possible, rectified.

Why this discernment when it involves someone frying fresh fish in Kharadar, where we must get our money’s worth (teil aur masala kum), and not the purveyors of toxic seafood in Clifton? How is it that the bun-kebab guy behind Jinnah Hospital, hygiene issues aside, can make it just the way I want? More onions, I don’t like that tomato, you call that an egg? All complaints, within limits, are catered to.

Taking pride in what you do for a living comes into it. Maybe high-end establishments also take care of their customers but that world, sadly, is a sealed book to me. Still, this much I know: it’s the weird nouveau category that doesn’t give a damn, because it gets custom regardless.

Mediocrity rules the concrete jungle. But that doesn’t mean you have to accept it. Rana Rashid didn’t.

Enough said, for now.

imalik@dawn.com