Domain Maximus

Picked up a Mumbai Mirror on the way to work today. I am now depressed. Will write on why soon of course…

By the way, I was going through some old comments. Some of you guys have opened my eyes. I have taken a terrible pledge to start responding actively to some of the comments. Lets see if we can take the interactivity on the blog to the next level.

Anyone wants to see snaps of my new home? Coming soon mon amis…

Does anyone know a good driving school in Mumbai where I can get a driving license done quickly and reliably? Suddenly overcome by a need to get one done. Oh and how difficult is it to get one in Mumbai?

Sidin

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity of watching Kya Kool Hai Hum with a bunch of friends. One thing that remains etched into my memory is the scene where Tushhar Kapoor drops a cigarette butt into his pants. However it was not that particular detail that caught my attention, rather it was the location of the scene itself. I had made no mistake, it was the Barista in Bandra where, merely the weekend before, I had spent two hours waiting for the Harry the broker. It was from there that I had began my epic journey to find a house in Mumbai. In hindsight I should have just done what Tusshar Kapoor did and opted for a lesser pain.

After three weeks of wearing the soles of my shoes and my patience thin in Mumbai I have finally found a 2 BHK in Wadala East with a nice view of an oil refinery belonging to a leading Indian petrochemicals major, with an abandoned warehouse nestling in lawns which were lush green sometime in the early 50s. As I was reclining in my recliner-cum-sofa-cum-bed (It was a sofa-cum-recliner till there was a horrible accident earlier that day and I sat on it where I was not supposed to) and enjoying this view last night, it dawned on me to distill my experiences to a concise list of bullet points to help the unwary house hunter in Mumbai. While this may not guarantee immediate accommodation, you may be able to avoid explaining management consulting and the word Kearney to a slightly tone-deaf 80-year old Parsi lady, as I had to, during my epic journeys.

1. So you have that FMCG job you always wanted? Or maybe it is that dream consulting company? Say goodbye to all that and sign up with ICICI bank right now. No matter what division and what job, join them and all the property brokers (and some of the matrimonial ones) will make a beeline to you. If that is not possible at least join one of the companies which has an ICICI in it. If you are in ICI just say your company name twice in rapid succession and it should work mostly. I got a home only because our office was just behind the ICICI building. There is something in the name that makes brokers go gaga and house owners go weak in the knees. For example:

House Owner: So tell me a little bit about yourself…
Hunter of house: I am a mallu who drinks at least four bottles of beer a day and have been known to play loud music at night and have a couple of maid and neighbour harassment lawsuits pending in the Mumbai and Bhubhaneswar High Courts. I work in a bank on weekdays.
House Owner: Which one?
Hunter of house: ICICI Bank…
House Owner: Excellent. You can move in on Sunday…
House owner to wife after hunter has left: What a nice boy no?

2. Were you one of those who laugh loudly when you read news stories of engineers who get posted in Bihar and then promptly get kidnapped and married to some landlord’s daughter? Well you can eat every single snigger now. That poor soul will be settled in a plush place in Pali Hill while you are still standing by the roadside in a dusty corner of Khar looking at a two room hovel and wondering why it needs a 5 lakh deposit. House-owners trust single men less than they do a strain of the Ebola virus. So call up your girlfriend and tell her things are moving faster than you thought and you need to tie the knot by 4 pm before you meet that society in Kalina at 4:30. If you don’t have a girlfriend make one in Mumbai now. I believe the Hiranandani’s have a lass in college.

3. If Murgh Malai or Shark Fin soup is your fave dish for a wholesome dinner then time for some CPR, or Culinary Process Reengineering. 99% percent of all house owners I saw are violent, rabid vegetarians who will kill to protect their vegetarianism. So before you go in for an interview with the house owner prepare your lines well. Avoid this:

House Owner: So what do you cook at home?
Severely Tanned Househunter: Oh rice, fish, chicken…
Whoosh!! Thud!! (Noise of 24-year old man flying out of house and falling on road.)

When ideally it should have been like this:

House Owner: So what do you cook at home?
Lightly Sweating Househunter Nearing Kill: Rice.
House Owner: And?
Lightly Sweating Househunter breathing down neck of prey: That’s it. Only rice.
House Owner: Alcohol?
Steadily drying Househunter with snigger of imminent success: Only in my shaving lotion.
House Owner: These are the keys, you can move in tonight
Triumphant Househunter mentally noting to have Sheesh Kebab and beer tonight to celebrate: Thank you.

This 3-mantra-model should help you easily locate a house in Mumbai and avoid the pain I had to go through for three weeks. Take them, understand them and adopt them. Make them a part of your life for a week. That comfy apartment in Bandra is just waiting for you.

Now that cigarette butt thing by Tusshar Kapoor did remind me of something else too which happened in engineering college. But then this is just not the place for that sort of story.

The view from my building is not as poetic as I would like it to be. There are no parks with trees and birds, no waves crashing against uncared for beaches and not even a local train station with all its turbulence. My house is perched on top of a hill, from where I can see some wasteland, an old abandoned warehousing building, and a pool of murky water. One of my friend told me that my area will be polluted a lot because these trucks keep coming to and from the oil refinery nearby. But I don’t think so at all. Maybe I am just too high in my 6th floor flat to notice the pollution.

One of the things I am upset about is that I don’t get a view of the refinery. It is on the other side of the building, and the wonderful old Parsi lady next door has a breathtaking view of the complex. By day I guess it is a hulking mass of pipelines and rust and smoke, and if she leaves her curtains open I guess she must think it is an eyesore. But by night it must be a sea of tiny lights, some arranged in long tall lines, where they are arranged on refinery towers and buildings, and some in random arrangements, as if thrown around by hand. I would have loved to have that view. I love that glow you get through the window at night when you have switched off all the lights but the city outside is still awake. Sometimes you can hear tiny sounds of buses and trucks. But in my flat all I hear is the sound of water hissing in the pipes and sometimes the screech of new people moving in and pushing their furniture along the floor.

There are four flats on my floor, but I have only spoken to the Parsi lady next door. One of the other two I think is unoccupied and the third is occupied by a Catholic family, the Noronhas. I have never spoken to them of course, the Parsi lady told me all this. She is the sort who makes you feel at home from the first time you talk to her. She was relieved to get a neighbour opposite her flat finally. I guess she is lonely from staying alone on the floor and having noone to be… umm… old-ladyish with.

She makes tea for me everyday in the morning, and while it was very sweet of her in the beginning I really don’t know now if I should ask her to stop. She makes cups of tea that have just the right amount of milk and her tea powder leaves a wonderfully spicy aftertaste. It reminds me of a school trip I did when I was in 8th class I think. We went to this tea estate somewhere in the Nilgiris and, like all of us used to do in school, I too wanted to buy something from my pocket money for my folks back home. We were served cups of tea made with the leaves from the estate and it was so invigorating that I immediately bought a bag for home.

My grandma refused to open the bag of tea immediately though. I hemmed and hawed with impatience. But she was adamant on opening it only after we were done with the already opened bag of Kannan Devan at home. I nursed the thought of heaving that garish silver and green bag of “company-made” tea over the fence many times. The impostor had no business impeding my “original-direct-from-estate-brew”. A few days later when I drank enough tea everyday to finally exhaust the bag, my grandma finally made a fresh brew from my tea pouch. And it tasted exactly like the Kannan Devan she made the day before. Maybe I was conned, maybe people can brew tea only one way.

But the lady next door makes her tea exactly how I tasted it all those years ago in the Nilgiris.

Out home is now a very respectable bachelor pad. We have a TV and a washing machine and a drying stand which is mostly festooned with multi-coloured underwear. The stand, with its proud embellishments, is currently stationed at one end of the living room. We don’t expect too many visitors right now. At least not ones who would mind our underwear.

Its been an exhausting couple of weeks settling down and furnishing the place up. It is too easy to go out buying small knicks and knacks when they cost so little. Four bucks for a vacuum hook, 20 bucks for a bunch of hangers. End of the week it all adds up to a bloody pile of cash. And its just the first week of this month. Salary seems so far away. But now I know where all the trains go, which platforms handle which lines and I even have a season ticket and pass. In a few weeks I should even know which station comes on which side of the train. Then I will be a complete commuter I guess. I guess that should be mighty satisfying. But then I come back home, draw apart the curtains and sit down to finish An Equal Music. And I look out and see nothing poetic. Nothing at all.