Tuesday, November 13, 2001
Home Sweet Home - Part 2
My house-hunting experience left me defused, my enthusiasm punctured and pride more than a little bruised.
A month into our forced separation, the facade of normality we had put up for the benefit of inquisitive relatives, sympathetic friends and well-meaning colleagues was beginning to crack. Phrases like 'None of your business' and 'What's the big deal, yaar', laced with liberal doses of irritation, had become our refrain.
So, when my editor told me that an old colleague of his had an empty flat in Malad he was willing to rent out for a while, we grabbed the offer.
The house was not in the 'Malad' you, I and a few colleagues of recent vintage know. It was in a place called Kurar Village in a godforsaken corner of the suburb. Kurar is a sprawling shanty town, and the house was in a solitary multi-storeyed structure that rose over the surrounding slums like a blot on the landscape.
The only access into the village is via a narrow road, flanked by a never-ending row of unauthorised shops. Share-a-rickshaws, piled five-high and operated by goondas to the last man, are the only means of transport into the boondocks.
But desperate people do desperate things, like clutching at straws. We took a deep breath, and moved in. After all, we reasoned, it was only for month. A cousin was moving out of his home in Dahisar and had promised to rent it to us for as long as we wished to stay in it.
The month stretched agonisingly to two and then to three.
For three months, we would wake up each morning to the sounds of donkeys braying and the sight of children squatting.
That was our baptism into holy matrimony.
My house-hunting experience left me defused, my enthusiasm punctured and pride more than a little bruised.
A month into our forced separation, the facade of normality we had put up for the benefit of inquisitive relatives, sympathetic friends and well-meaning colleagues was beginning to crack. Phrases like 'None of your business' and 'What's the big deal, yaar', laced with liberal doses of irritation, had become our refrain.
So, when my editor told me that an old colleague of his had an empty flat in Malad he was willing to rent out for a while, we grabbed the offer.
The house was not in the 'Malad' you, I and a few colleagues of recent vintage know. It was in a place called Kurar Village in a godforsaken corner of the suburb. Kurar is a sprawling shanty town, and the house was in a solitary multi-storeyed structure that rose over the surrounding slums like a blot on the landscape.
The only access into the village is via a narrow road, flanked by a never-ending row of unauthorised shops. Share-a-rickshaws, piled five-high and operated by goondas to the last man, are the only means of transport into the boondocks.
But desperate people do desperate things, like clutching at straws. We took a deep breath, and moved in. After all, we reasoned, it was only for month. A cousin was moving out of his home in Dahisar and had promised to rent it to us for as long as we wished to stay in it.
The month stretched agonisingly to two and then to three.
For three months, we would wake up each morning to the sounds of donkeys braying and the sight of children squatting.
That was our baptism into holy matrimony.
# posted by Ashok @ 1:11 AM 
