The
absolute joy of searching and renting a new apartment every year can only be
aptly described as this title does!
The nomadic
life of struggling to plant roots without the ‘loan’ and ‘apna apartment’ can
only be experienced!
It is
overrated for those who have stayed put in one house forever, and weirdly amusing
to those who lend us ‘nomads’- the much needed help while shifting.
There are
various types of these ‘working class - professional’ nomads who are forced to rent - stay – vacate - repeat:
-
The anxious: “worry worry from packing
to searching to moving to everything… bottom line is ‘I must worry’
-
The fighter: “I will fight till the
last penny owed to me is handed to me by the owners, woh paisa mera hai!”
- The chalta hai: “acha wapas shift
karna hai? Ok” (“oh we have to move again? OK”)
-
The prepared: will have all the
numbers required right from Prabhakar Pest control, Ahmed uncle movers, gas
wala ‘stylo guy’ to murthy bhaiya bisleri wale.
Now after
my 7th house shift - in as many years in Hyderabad… I can safely say
I am all of the above! Leaving aside the fact that each house move was a
different ordeal in itself, … each shifting has shed new light on the species we
call as the ‘owners’ and even further light on me as a tenant/tired soul.
Moreover it’s been hilarious in great many ways due to various specimens of
humanity that I have encountered!
The weird brokers:
Of all the brokers I have met, this
episode stands out! This was sometime in 2014, when I and my friend Anu, were
looking for a house:
It was a usual dull thursday evening,
both of us met up after work around 5:30 pm to meet this 10th broker
of the week and to check out a few apartments. It was going to be probably the
50th house we were seeing in the past 2 months…. and all were
pretty much beginning to look the same…
Venue: Some apartment complex with 8
floors and maybe 4 to 5 apartments on each floor
Starring: Shraddha, Anu, Rehman
Bhaiya broker and the drunk/stoned/maybe both - watchman
*The broker scene – no retakes*
The drunk watchman being rudely woken
up by the broker bhaiya (it took a little more than 15 mins of shaking and
shouting) as both of us stood uncomfortably some distance away to the broker’s
continuous pep talk –“ madam usually
aaisa nai rehta”….. “ raat ko late soya hoga”…. “humesha duty pareech rehta
unno”… “first time aaise dikhra mereko”
(“madam, this is new……., he is usually wake and…….. alert, he is a good
watchman…….., maybe he slept late last night”)
We just nodded more to each other
than the broker though.
The fun started when the guy actually
woke up. He first stood up like he was never asleep, shouted a few orders to
his invisible (I am assuming) family, then tried to strut the rest of steps to
the lift and promptly fell.
Somehow we managed to get into the
lift while the broker - I can only say restrained - the watchman from further
‘bond’ moments. After the lift announcement told us about 5 times to “please close the door” the watchman
managed to close the rails and hit 4th floor.
For the lack of anything better to do
(and avoid starring at the watchman who was now slowly oscillating back and
forth on the balls of his feet --- and would have hit the lift rails, had it
not been his urge to smile stupidly at us every now and then),
I start quizzing the broker: "bhaiya,
fully furnished hai na?" (is the apartment fully furnished?)
*no answer….and to our surprise, the broker resorts to furiously
nodding and winking and shushing while trying to duck behind the blankly grinning
watchman’s back*
This would have been convenient and served
the purpose if the watchman had resembled a bear and the broker was a skinny
chap…. However here was this hugely proportioned beefy broker who was trying to
shift his bulk behind a chap who would have slipped through the lift rails had
he been standing sideways.
Not finding the correct answer I
persisted:
"bhaiya yeh rent kitna hai?"
(how much is the rent?)
*no
answer again….vehement nodding and winking by the broker continues, this time
accompanied with furious foot tapping*
By this time thankfully we reach the
floor and the drunk watchman slowly opens the lift while suspiciously looking
at the broker, as though his foot tapping had suddenly jolted him from his
grinning reverie.
It’s a corner flat, we walk in and it
looks like we entered a horror movie set – the place looked haunted, dusty and
was not furnished! We both come out in about 2 seconds to find the broker yelling
at the watchman that he had brought the wrong key and it was not this house that
he had intended to show.
The now – fully suspicious watchman -
still drunk though and not fully in control of his faculties - provided some
entertainment for the next 10 minutes aided of course by the broker – who had
stopped winking and nodding and had resorted to furiously pacing the corridor
while talking into his phone- to (what we could garner) his boss - to
understand which house he should show.
Like a slow CPU processor which has
just realized the computer has been turned on - the watchman followed the
broker – occasionally stopping to help us relive his grinning moments.
Anu and I spent the next 10 mins
outside near the elevator watching the slow moving broker desperately trying to
shake off his watchman shadow by swiftly changing his direction while walking
in a 6 feet by 6 feet corridor space.
When we felt the entertainment has
last long enough, we decided to leave only to be estopped by a series of
mysterious facial signals by the broker which again involved a lot of winking/
glancing/ nodding /raising eyebrows /opening and closing of the mouth. Oh the
watchman was grinning on the side of course.
Finally with no help from
anyone (surprise) - the watchman decided that he should go down and get the
right set of keys! I am sure it must have felt like the ‘eureka’ moment for him
given that he suddenly stood up erect - and announced: “I go get new keys from
down….madams stay here” (points at the floor and stares for 2 mins) and then
abruptly gets into the lift, gesturing the broker to follow him.
The broker on the other hand looked
delighted that his shadow was finally leaving but his face fell when he
realized that he was to follow the shadow.
What unfolded next was nothing short
of strange, now when the two of us think back, we don’t know why we even
followed through: The watchman hits ground floor button and begins to close the
rails, the broker promptly jumps out at the last minute and closes the rails
and the elevator goes down with only the watchman.
The broker then shoots past us to the
floor on top remarkably swiftly for all his bulk and yells "madamji!!!
jaldi aayiye…..ghar upar wale floor pe hai" (madam
quickly, the actual apartment is on the top floor)
And we follow him up the stairs like
a spy movie and we are told by the broker (in hushed voice at a breakneck
speed) that we need to pretend that the last house on the 5th
floor belongs to our long lost friend (suddenly created) and we have to visit
them (or the world might end) with that on parting note the broker suddenly
nods and winks again and leaves us at the doorstep of a flat on the 5th
floor. He rings the bell and backs up saying,” "woh watchman ko pata nai
chalna chaiye ki aap yahan ho" (the watchman
should not know that you are seeing this flat) (imagine
voice slowly trailing away as he walks off)
We both were well – extremely
startled/ open mouthed/ what's happening? …when the door opens to reveal an aunty
who shows us the house with great interest….By then, the two of us were so
startled and distracted that seeing the house and how it looked like is the
only thing about that evening we have completely forgotten.
When we step out of the house…. we
see both the watchman and the broker stepping out of elevator at the same time,
walking hurriedly towards us and asking simultaneously "madam kahan gaye
aap"? (madam where did you go?)
Anu: "humari friend yahan rehti
hai jo bimar hai…. usse dekhne aaye the"
(“our friend
is ill and we came to see her”)
I am surprised at the sudden fluent
lie. I stop to look at her… and by the look on her face she is surprised at the
lie as well!! Watchman is startled (still suspicious but startled… a weird
combination on his already excellent drunk face). Broker gives Anu a nice warm
brotherly smile and glances nervously at the watchman.
Anu has this vague expression about
her as we leave the building, something akin to – well that’s that, let’s get
to business now.
“Aah Shraddha, see there is a veggie
truck, let’s buy veggies here only then”
* end *
* end *
