Once upon a house-hunt
Between impossible brokers and implacable landlords, it’s a rough ride
It’s house-hunting season once more for my household of two. Early in our search, it’s already bowled an unplayable yorker at us. We’d shortlisted a housing society owned by a trust with spiritual leanings, not letting our atheism get in the way of a good deal. Gender, religion, occupation no bar, they said, raising our humble hopes, so frequently quashed by the regularised bigotry of Mumbai’s real estate scene. “Their Babaji will decide if you are good people or not, based on your names. And oh – they are very prompt with maintenance work,” said the owner’s broker, dangling a carrot that we couldn’t leap up to grab even if we wanted to.
Chaat shop chic
We were rejected, leaving me with a few unanswered questions. Is my name intrinsically evil? What if I offered to change it to the more musical Rihanna, Babaji? And how much fun am I missing out on by not living in a housing society where every member flaunts a sweet-sounding name? A kind of distorted Darwinian universe where those with the fittest names survive and live happily ever after with the similarly privileged.
YOU’LL FIND THE DNA OF THE SOCIETY THROUGH THE MATERIAL PINNED UP TO NOTICE BOARDS, EMBODIED IN THE MENACING WORDS OF THE SECRETARY
The next building we saw had no such compunctions about tenants’ names. Its UQ (Ugliness Quotient) was at a decent 7 on 10, with three points lost to a secret bathroom that leads out of a hideous cupboard with a veneer straight out of a refurbished chaat shop trying to project a new, sophisticated image using geometrical patterns in fake dark wood. As always, I began to invent stories in my head about the people who owned the flat. When I asked the broker whether the landlords were elderly, considering the building’s vintage, he thought for a moment and replied, “Middle-aged. Must be about 45.” As much of an assault as my freshly rejected forty-year-old heart could take.
The case of the flying butt
When you’re house-hunting, you’re evaluating homes even when you needn’t. I’ve noticed my fair share of bizarrely named buildings in suburban Mumbai. Veera Desai Road’s ‘Gundecha Symphony’ is a particular favourite. As is ‘Palazzo Opulence’ in Santacruz West. ‘Pallacio’ in Bandra makes me snigger each time, owing to the possibilities for a slip of the tongue, as it were. ‘New Sputnik’, a modest old housing society close to where I live, always makes me wonder about its origins, while Bhandup’s ‘Mahavir Trinkets’ is just, well, we’ll leave it to Babaji to figure this one out.
I’m also a compulsive reader of material pinned up to society notice boards. Here you’ll find the DNA of the building, embodied in the menacing words of the secretary – a designation guaranteed
to turn a regular human into a power-crazed despot before you can say General Body Meeting. I’ve always enjoyed these missives, especially the one regarding the descent of a “flying butt” from an upper floor of my former building, straight into the hennaed hair of a resident whose resulting screams pierced the summer sky. It took me a moment to translate “flying butt” to “tossed cigarette”. The version in my head was significantly more dramatic.
Thou shalt not covet thy friend’s flat
There’s this other thing that happens when you’re house-hunting – you begin to covet other people’s rented homes. Stepping into a recently Covid-recovered friend’s flat for the first time since the pandemic struck, I turned into a monster of avarice. I squeezed in as many polite apartment-related questions as I could between the gin and the sushi. But by the time the rain came in a sudden, brazen gust, I too gave up any pretence of shame and as much as suggested my host just hand over her flat to me. If you’re reading this, sushi provider, I blame the pandemic for leaving me incapable of appropriate social interaction. Also, are you absolutely certain you don’t want to move?
I know what lies in my misbegotten future. Brokers, like bankers, will throw me into existential disarray. Implacable landlords will make me dream up elaborate revenge fantasies. Then, when I’m already down, the packers and movers will strike with intimidating briskness. And finally, there will be the small matter of unloading cartons and the associations they carry, making me reassess every life choice from unfinished relationships to unopened stationery. The building’s name better be worth a laugh.