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Humor / Satire
Life for Rent
by
Deep Banerjee
Whoever said
that the hardest thing to find on earth is �true love� has obviously
never tried looking for a decent rented accommodation in South Delhi.
For all you brave hearted people out there, if death defying, near
suicidal activities like bungee jumping don�t quite work for you, try
house hunting.
I was posted in Delhi in my new job recently. I knew that if you wanted
a taste of the �high life�, Delhi was the place to be. I also knew that
the �high-life� begins with a high-end apartment. What, however, I
didn�t know was that finding a �high-end� apartment at a reasonable
price in Malviya Nagar was next to impossible. It is said that Lord
Shiva had first tried to rent an apartment in Malviya Nagar. I hear he
lives up in the mountains these days, barely clothed. Rent Control.
However, in my journey to find a place in Malviya Nagar, I was first
assisted by a tall , bright fellow. �Imaan Bhaai� , as he called
himself, was full of life and optimism for me. Another thing he was full
of was praise : for himself. �I will definitely find you a place Saahib.�
�I will offer you prices no one else can offer�. � I have been in this
business for 23 years and I know all these house owners personally. Only
I can persuade them to negotiate prices.� The �I� was so prominent in
everything he said , that I had begun to wonder if his name should have
been �I-man� bhaai instead. Nevertheless, with �I-man� bhaai , off I
went , hopes soaring even while enduring his incessant boasting of how
many people he had obliged by finding them their dream homes. However,
my hopes were short-lived, as even after two hours of torturous
house-hunting, and what seemed like ages of �I-man� ranting, we could
not find my dream-home. Trouble was, that all the houses that �I-man�
bhaai showed , it appeared, were last occupied by the pre-medieval man.
Easily passable as caves, these dimly-lit, dinghy one-rooms were
definitely not livable. But not intending to break the jolly I-man�s
heart, I left the place telling him �Rooms are alright but I need some
time to think. I�ll get back to you tomorrow�. I gathered that at my
budget, the rooms would not get any better.
But this did not discourage me from looking for a house there. If
Mohammed Ghazni, I told myself, could try again and again up to 17 times
to conquer a province in Northern India, I should at least give it a
couple of more tries. With this, I set off the next day to look for a
house again in a nearby area. Little did I know that Ghazni would have
certainly given up hope, packed his bags and left for home long back if
he were up against what I was : Real Estate Agents. Infact the whole
place was teeming with these guys. I wouldn�t be surprised if in a
couple of years, the government put up sign boards at all junctions
saying �Go Slow! Real Estate Dealers ahead�.
However, this time, instead of going to Imaan Bhaai, I went to a
different guy. This was partially because I didn�t want to rent the
�pig-sty� type of apartments I had promised Imaan bhaai I would, and
partially because I was a pesky brat with a really sore luck. For though
this new guy was sophisticated and impressive, the prices of the houses
he showed were right off the roof. Literally. Sure the houses were
really nice and posh, and seemed quite dream like, the rents were a
nightmare. That the real-estate prices had plunged down around the globe
seemed to be an ineffective phenomenon in this god-forsaken part of the
world. Houses, it turned out, were like girls. The nice and the
affordable ones were already taken. Dejected, I told him so. �Fikr nahi
bhaiyya. I will take you to a person who can show houses for a lot
cheaper� he said. I was delighted by his camaraderie. It is difficult to
imagine one agent lending off his hard-earned customer to another agent
without filing a paternal law suit first. In this era, where the biggest
�Satyams� turn out to be the biggest �Mithyams�, this kind of trust was
praise-worthy. So we trotted off to this new hope, this friend of his,
this other agent, whom unfortunately I recognized almost instantly :
�I-Man� . My heart went on hibernation for a beat or two as soon as I
saw him. For all those who haven�t been lucky enough, let me tell you
that it�s a very awkward feeling when you are introduced to your old
real estate agent by your new one. Its not a feeling of �dejavu� by any
means. Rather, its like a meeting between an over-possessive husband and
his cheating, infidel wife. I could see many discomforting questions in
his eyes : �So is this your new arm candy?�. �I should have known you
were seeing other men�. �To think, I trusted you, tried to please you,
and you run off with this new guy. What does he have that I don�t?�
And so, here I am, living out my guilt-ridden days at Jia-Sarai. And
while its not the best, it does provide for a perfect hideout till
things cool off between me and those real estate goons. While I might
never get to actually experience the �high-life� in Delhi, I shall at
least enjoy the quieter side, popularly called the �Real India� by
visiting tourists, the stuff that wins Oscars these days. Looking back,
I now realize that the �I� in �I-man�s� world has a significant impact.
It make a perfectly inhabitable �to let�, a �toIlet�.
May 10, 2009
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