Want a spiffy haircut or a trendy pair of glares? The lockdown has laid bare the jugaad gene of many Jamshedpur residents, without apparently violating social distancing rules.

For those needing a crash course in jugaad, it is a flexible and unconventional approach to problem-solving.

So, even though the ongoing lockdown or the nationwide quarantine to curb the spread of the coronavirus, mandates only the buying and selling of essential items, many shop-keepers and consumers are doing much more.

While shops of non-essential items are under lock and key, some people are successfully buying shoes, fancy bags, glares and clothes, but also getting a haircut and getting spectacles mended.

These form of trades are clandestine, but shopkeepers as well as customers are getting increasingly restive during the prolonged lockdown.

The Telegraph has found out that the trade of non-essential good and services works in two ways.

In one of the increasingly prevalent ways, the buyer calls up a shopkeeper on the cellphone. Nowadays, most shop hoardings have a cellphone number. The customer tells the shopkeeper specifically what he or she needs and a mutually convenient time to meet is decided. The shopkeeper pulls up shutters briefly, and the transaction is complete.

“It has to be a high-value transaction, otherwise the effort is not worth it,” an optician in Bistupur said. “Since the lockdown, my business was zero. But in the last one week, I have made as many as two dozen spectacles based on orders over the phone from customers. Yes, I am taking all precautions as such wearing a mask, washing my hands frequently, and I ask my customers to do so too. As I attend one customer at a time, social distancing is maintained.”

He added that shopkeepers selling high-end shoes, clothes and bags were operating in the same way. “Also sellers of costly medical, engineering and management books.”

In the second method, a seller of a non-essential item stocks his goods at a grocer who is allowed to open for limited hours during the lockdown. The administration has only allowed grocery shops, milk outlets, medicines and vegetable kiosks to operate during the lockdown.

“This method depends on how good your rapport is with the grocer,” said a trader of snacks whose own shop is closed as it comes under the non-essential category. “I have shifted some of my goods to the shop of a nearby grocer. Of course there are prospective buyers for snacks, people are bored during the lockdown,” he smiled.