A Household problem

(This post is dedicated to the house hunter community of Mumbai. Guys and Girls, keep looking for your dream house. Never ever give up. Someday, when you are nearing age 80 maybe, you will definitely find it.)

Whole of Sion, Kurla and half of Chembur knows by now that we are looking for a house. In almost every new society and more than half of the old ones, we are more familiar than most of the tenants. It has become quite a ‘kahani ghar ghar ki’ by now.

Here’s how we became the numero uno house hunters in the vicinity.

DAY 1 – The Beginning

The wife called in office 1 day and said, “I had called a broker today.”

“Broker? What broker? What for?” I asked, unable to immediately comprehend the context.

“What do you mean what for? Of course to show us a house” she flared. Oh!

This was by far the fastest mobilization of a thought ever known to mankind. Earlier that morning, over breakfast, I had made a passing mention of how nice it would be to have a 3-bedroom house.

“Where?” I asked with some trepidation.

“Sion or Chembur” she replied, in a tone which implied isn’t it obvious, dumbo.

“What range are we looking at?” I was beginning to not liking this conversation, fast.

“2.5 or 3 bedroom”, she said.

“No, no, I mean what price range?” I asked, in a voice that was now beginning to quaver.

“Why do you need a range? You can always take a loan. Who will deny you a loan?” she asked back in a challenging tone.

This is the thing with wives. They can make ends meet like no one else. I thought of telling her that there is a difference between eligibility (of loan amount) and ability (to repay), but let it pass.

“We will discuss when I get back home. I have to go for a meeting now.” I answered instead in the curtest possible tone, not to sound rude, but to escape from the situation. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Before 6 p.m. the same day, I had talked to my wife 9 more times as also with 3 agents, whom my wife had considerately given my number. This made me hopping mad by the time I reached home.

I removed my shoes and plopped myself on the bed, hoping for some relaxation from the idiot box. No such luck. The first channel I tuned into, Star Plus, was showing the 10,000th episode of the never-ending soap “Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki”; click-click; An inebriated Dev Anand was rambling “… tere ghar ke saamne” on Channel V; click-click; Colors was screening the 80s hit movie “Ghar”! GRR!!! Disgustedly, I threw away the remote and switched on the radio only to hear Bhupinder happily singing “Ye tera ghar ye mera ghar…” on 93.5 RED FM. Bajate Raho!

It is exactly days like these that make you feel whether it is all worth it. Fearing that even dinner would be assembled in the shape of a house, I gave in to my wife’s demands and called up one of the agents whom I had given a piece of my mind in the morning. We decided to meet the next day and he agreed to show us a number of ‘badhiya’ houses.

DAY 2 – The Hunt

House agents, just like TCs at railway stations, can be spotted a mile away. Ours, in formal full sleeves, carrying 2 mobile phones and looking like he had appeared for his SSC exams only last year, came to us and said “I have lined up 14 houses for you today sir. Hope you got your car.”

Car? Were we going to drive the house away? What an idiot we have landed, I wondered. Tch, tch … wrong again. If ever you want to go house hunting, go buy a car first. Else by the end of the day, you might feel as if you have completed the full marathon, twice over.

As our caravan progressed, we realized that the gap between dreams and reality hits you with full force when looking for a house. While dreams dwell somewhere in the center of Carter Road, Bandra, pocket reality points towards the end of Ghodbunder Road, Thane. The result was that it took us 3 tiring hours and 8 houses, before I could see a smile on my better half’s face. Phew!

The agent, who was feeling the heat (more from my wife than from the sun above), suddenly burst out with renewed vigor, “3 bedroom hai, sir. 1550 square feet.”

The thing about houses these days is the builder, when calculating the area, includes even the topmost corner of the uppermost attic, where even a rat would have difficulty entering. Looking at the house gives you a feeling that the adjacent house should also be included to complete the area mentioned.

Anyway, the wife liked it, so I decided to fall in line and in typical analyst style, asked “Carpet kitna hai?”

This is asked only for the purpose of making you sound knowledgeable. It makes no difference whether the answer is 250 or 1250 sq. feet. However, I was not going to be put on the back foot by this 20-something kid.

“30% less sir”, he answered dutifully.

“Oh. So you mean”, I said, assuming my most thoughtful look,”this is super built up area?” My recently acquired knowledge came in handy here, thanks to Google.

Next intelligent observation you are supposed to make is the view from all bedrooms / hall / kitchen / toilet and wherever else. As I moved into another room, the agent said, “The view from here, sir, opens directly onto the golf club.”

Tiger Woods would have been so proud. The 5 square feet of green that was visible though, could easily have been anything from Madison Square Garden to Hanging Garden, considering the 10 buildings that were obstructing the view.

“And we have 2 master bedrooms in this house, sir!” he continued, unfazed by my irritation.

Had the joke not been on us, the anatomy of the house would have seemed hilarious.
The first room we entered was called the ‘living room’, although looking at the size of it, you might as well ‘live’ in the outside corridor. Then there were 3 more rooms, identical in size and shape to the living room, known as bedrooms, thus called because a bed is all that can fit. Any bedroom having an attached toilet is known as ‘Master Bedroom’. This guy was a genius!

“Logically speaking, even the living room then can be called a master bedroom”, I remarked, giving him a sardonic grin. This made him laugh in a loud and mechanical way, the way you do when you have to please someone, which only got me further irritated.

Then there was another tiny room which was no more than 2 walls separated by a 2’ by 3’ platform and enough space for a medium sized person to stand. The agent actually called it the kitchen. As in where you cook??!! I dreaded the thought of bringing my mom to show her this sorry piece of culinary area. Sacrilege!

After the kitchen, my gaze turned to the ceiling. “Why is the ceiling so darned low?” I questioned the agent. I mean Eskimos I understand; but then Igloos were never this costly.

But the agent seemed to have an answer for this too. “It is not low sir", he answered in a patronizing manner, “it is designed in such a way that the air from the fan can be felt in all corners of the room.”

Now, did we have a 21st century Einstein in the making here? I mean, this guy, baby-faced and all, was continuing to astonish me with his genius.

“So how much for this?” I asked, knowing fully well that any answer would make me feel dazed. But here too Einstein managed to surpass me. I began to see stars before my eyes once he quoted the price; as if Mike Tyson had delivered a knockout punch!

Suddenly I heard my wife calling me to my senses from one of the 3 bedrooms. I excused myself and went looking for her. Inside, she told me “See, no need to act so dazed, it is only twenty extra.”

What’s wrong with your maths, I wanted to ask her. Instead, I argued “But that is plenty extra.”

“Look, as it is we are going to take a loan. Why worry about ten or twenty?” she insisted.

If he would still be alive, I wanted nothing more at that moment than kill the person who invented home loans.

“But there is stamp duty, registration, interiors, maintenance, etc. which will add to the burden”, I protested, desperately trying to find a way to get out of the situation.

“Oh, come on, have I ever demanded anything from you?” she wailed. ‘Ever’ means this week, right? I was about to ask, but couldn’t.

“Just this once, please…”, she pressed her advantage. Damn! How do you argue with emotional blackmail?

Cornered and bruised, I was about to throw in the towel, when suddenly the new age Einstein came running in, looking flustered. “Madam, I forgot to tell you”, he began.

Now then! What happened suddenly to bother the omniscient Mr. Einstein? Was this flat not for sale after all? I offered up a silent prayer.

“This is a strictly vegetarian society. Non-veg not allowed, no parcel, no cooking at home”, he blurted out.

Yes! There is a God in Heaven after all.

Hearing this, my wife’s face went through a rainbow of emotions; anxiety, anger, sadness, disappointment all in a matter of seconds. Seeing her on the verge of hysteria, Einstein, who by now had turned from a beet root red to a vanilla ice-cream white, knew it was time to make an exit.

He profusely apologized for his folly (though I could have kissed him for this) and led us out of the flat and the pure vegetarian society. End of story. Or was it?

DAY n – Payback

The setback only helped in firing up the tigress even more. As I was leaving for office the other day, I overheard her talking on the phone to an agent, “… and keep in mind, we eat non-veg 6 days a week. So search accordingly. And please find a house that has at least one balcony. No, no, don’t worry about the budget.”

Picture, abhi baaki hai mere dost! ;)

BIG BOSS – Season 11

(This post is dedicated to all my bosses over the years. Without you all, I would not have reached where I am right now. I might have gone a lot more ahead.)

My psychiatrist tells me the recurring nightmares I am getting are my past demons coming back to haunt me. Yes, I informed her, all 10 of them!

They were the bosses I have had in the 10 jobs I changed in my short 13-year career. In retrospect, it seems all of them shared a single soul (stone black at that), although they came in varied sizes, colors and cultures. Like brothers lost in some global ‘Kumbh ka mela’. They are the sole reason my resume tops the ‘Jobhoppers’ list at every recruitment firm :(

Bosses are invariably associated with ‘appraisals’, which are yearly rigmaroles akin to police 3rd degrees – where the beating continues till you agree to sign on whatever they want you to.

During one such appraisal, as I entered the torture chamber, I mean, the boss’s cabin, he said, or rather commanded, “Yes sir! Please have a seat.”

The ‘sir’ had a double coat of sarcasm over it. ‘Sir’ing you, right at the start, usually means that you will end up somewhere near the bottom of the heap. Excellent start!

“So, what have you been up to this whole year? Done any good?” he began.

Remember, appraisals are like you versus Mike Tyson in a boxing ring. You need to keep your head down, hands up and desperately pray for the bell to ring. So I kept my gaze riveted on the soles of my shoes. Forgot to polish them, damn it!

“What are you going to do about the GTC project?” He asked in his most depreciatory tone of voice. Not that his voice is any more silken than that, but maybe it was the context that made it harsher.

“Have already sent out the response, boss”, I said, thinking, of all the 7 projects in the year, he had to choose that one. No coincidence this!

“Yes, I saw your ‘response’, and hence I am asking you whether you can manage to sort out the mess on your own? Frankly speaking, I have my doubts.” he retorted.

Ever noticed, just before the appraisal, how the boss goes completely ballistic, hitting you at every opportunity he gets (not the Rahul Dravid kind of hitting, but the Virender Sehwag variety).

As I patiently explained the response I had provided, it irked my boss even more, primarily because I had provided a solution, that too without consulting him. Hell hath no fury like a boss with a bruised ego.

“Earlier also, you had goofed up the dates and timings of a project meeting. I had to spend 2 hours trying to pacify their MD. And there were no minutes of that meeting as well!” he went on, raising his already shrill voice by one more decibel.

An astonishing quality about bosses, very much like wives, is their ability to remember – and reproduce verbatim – anything that can be used against you because of something you might have said or done anytime during the past year.

Sometimes I wonder how a boss would behave at home in front of his wife. Like an immovable force meeting an unstoppable object. Imagining the situation brought a smile to my face ;), which was instantly wiped off, since this 16-tonne truck was on a collision course with a hapless lamp post. Only one result was possible. Complete Annihilation!

The undesirable effect of his raising his voice was that my own came down a few decibels, to the point of being almost inaudible.

“Well, er…, the thing is the project manager at their end had goofed up. And the minutes were also to be circulated by them, that is, since…”

The last part sounded like a tape recorder, just after the spool of tape gets caught in the head of the recorder.

“Why do you always have to blabber?” he stormed, “Can you not talk clearly? Or even that is an effort now?”

I liked the ‘always’ part. A mistake was elevated to a habit, which served to provide the boss with that much extra ammunition. He was on a rampage now.

“Okay, what about the BTS project?” he asked sourly, picking on another goof up, “were you not supposed to make a synopsis and discuss with me yesterday?”

Was I? I was about to ask. Instead I said, “I was waiting till 9 p.m. for you. Since you did not return, I kept it on your desk and left.”

This answer sent him into overdrive. I knew he would now scale newer peaks of humiliating me.

“Who said I did not return?” he asked “I was stuck in a meeting with the MD which got over only at 11:30. But you were nowhere to be seen. And I DID NOT find it on my desk.”

11:30? Really? If you had told me I would have brought my bedding along, I wanted to tell him. As to his desk, it’s a wonder he can even find the keyboard on it.

“So tell me” he said, changing tactics and looking at my appraisal sheet for the first time in 40 minutes, “why do you rate yourself so high?”

Because I know you do not want to rate me at all, so I am just compensating for what is going to come.

“Well, actually, since I have finished 2 projects successfully and have managed to add an important account, I thought …” I chirped in.

“Oh, you thought, hmm... Interesting” When the boss says your thoughts are interesting, it is time to take cover. “Ok. I would not like to discuss this project by project (Oh really!), but rather look at the summary of your performance over the entire year (I am speechless!) and then see where you fit (like in your trash can, maybe?) and which areas you can improve upon (how about a complete overhaul, transforming myself into a clone of yours?).”

Suddenly his voice dropped down a couple of notches. Zor ka jhatka, dheere se lage!

“You see” he continued in a softer voice, “I actually like you (even I like you, somewhere deep down, from the bottommost portion of my …), and therefore would like to give you some advice (how to look for a new job). First and foremost, you need to take charge, take the initiative (ya, right!) ...”

What followed was a boring lecture on virtues that only 2 people can ever possess. Boss and God! And even God might have difficulty in sustaining all of them. No point in re-iterating the entire conversation here, but the summary of it was that my rating was slashed by 2 points, thanks to the ignominious bell curve, which obviously, was out of the boss’s control; increments and bonuses were never discussed, since they will be decided by the board of directors anyway and promotions were out of the question, since by now I was thinking how I ever managed to reach this far.

It was a lesson on narcissism combined with escapism. Chetan Bhagat wrote in a novel, that if you like someone, their mere presence evokes a warm feeling in you. It seems to be true, for by now, I was feeling as warm as one would in Antarctica.

“I have done all I could, to the best of my abilities”, he said in a somber voice.

A hospital scene – with a doctor coming out of an operation theater and saying these exact words, trying to console the grief stricken relatives of a patient he could not save – swam before my eyes. For a moment I felt like strangling my boss with the imaginary stethoscope.

With the bile rising in my throat making any conversation impossible, I angrily pushed back the chair and got up to leave, making as much noise as possible (my only form of protest). The parting shot came just as I was about to close the door of his cabin on my way out.

“Sir, you should have at least got your shoes polished before coming for the meeting!”

Amen!

(Once again, thanks to Vinay, Rajesh, Archana for edits and expert comments)

Dil Mein Baji Guitar…

(This blog is a tongue-in-cheek account of what we encounter in our day to day lives. It is not intended to hurt anybody - well - almost anybody. To be read in (and with) the right spirit ;). Hope you like it. Thanks Archana, Rajesh, Vinay for making it happen.)

The only thing missing from the guitar adorning our bedroom wall is a garland. It’s as good as dead otherwise. At times, I wish the wall would just open up and gobble it up, a la Sita mayya. A recent dialogue with my wife only made me think how to make this wish come true.

One quiet evening, as I happened to glance up from my poker game, I saw my wife's gaze settling on this unsettling piece of old memories. Nostalgia sometimes stinks!

I shuddered as I heard her asking, "Why don't you start learning to play the guitar again?"

"It is a hobby that requires great powers of concentration and greater amounts of practice. I have got neither the time nor the mind to do it", pat came my answer.

Akin to Sherlock Holmes, her gaze had given her away and I had earned an additional 5 seconds to form my answer. Who does she think I am anyway, Eric Clapton? Round 1 to Sherlock, or so I thought.

"So, does it take more concentration and time than you usually spend on that stupid poker game on the PC or on FaceBook?" asked my wife and I understood, immediately, that Sherlock never handled a situation of marital duress.

"You mean this game of poker?" I answered laughingly, feeling color rise into my cheeks, "this is just a stupid card game that is programmed on random logic. What concentration would this require?"

"But that's what you said it does require the other day when you refused to get up from the PC to make tea for my mother!" she stormed.

Even when she is not around, the mother-in-law makes sure she is a topic of discussion. This game of verbal volleys, however, was fast becoming an engineering mechanics exam, with lots of out-of-syllabus questions.

To avoid ruining the fine fish I had just had for dinner, I stopped playing, the game anyway ruined. I even began to shut down the PC, hoping this would pacify her. Alas, 11 years and I still haven’t got used to my wife’s ability to find a gap, like Roger Federer, even from the tightest of corners.

“Ok, so how about singing”, she hollered, dropping the guitar and taking up another touchy subject.

Sometimes, when uncomfortable topics come up, nightmarish faces start floating in front of my face. This time round, for no reason at all, the extreme close up of Shankar Mahadevan’s rotund face, laughing like the devil, popped up.

“What about singing?” I asked just as a feeling of hopelessness began enveloping me, as if the dementors from Harry Potter had landed up in Chembur. Someone call up Azkaban, please! :(

“Well, you once said you like to sing. Since you have so much free time, why not learn singing then?”

The one amazing quality women, and especially wives, posses is that they can use whatever you have said against you in an argument. The sad part is they always use it out of context and usually when you have completely forgotten about it. This was one of those poignant moments.

“What free time?” I asked, feigning indignation, “I am a consultant and as such have got …”

“That’s what I said, you have so much free time”, she said cutting me short, “Why don’t you take up singing. It will reduce your stress and give you a chance to earn some real money.”

Before I could even completely open my mouth, she continued, “Why don’t you at least give it a try? Only yesterday we saw that no-talent win in Voice of India. He will become a playback singer and earn loads of money. And anyway, you do sing very well.” she added, as an afterthought.

Voice of India is not held in our bathroom, I wanted to tell her, but restrained myself.

Instead, I soothingly told her, “Baby, who will make me a playback singer? Look at those contestants. Some are even half my age. Also I am not trained in singing. You love me, therefore you like my voice.” I topped this off with my most romantic smile (fingers crossed behind my back!).

“Well, you once said that if Himesh can sing, so can you. And even Kishore Kumar was not a trained singer!!” Game-Set-Match Wife.

There was more to come though. “Also, didn’t you once say that your singing is ripening like old wine and sounds better now than it did before?” Me and my big mouth!

As I slipped into the bed, I told her “Look, how much ever you say, people are not going to like my singing and don’t say Himesh Reshammiya and Kishore Kumar in the same breath ever again.”

There, I thought, I had finally managed to douse the fire.

“You never listen to whatever useful advice I give you. Go to hell.” She said and turned the other way.

That’s where I am, I wanted to tell her, but then what hadn’t happened in the last 11 years, was definitely not going to happen tonight. So yet again, I kept my trap shut.

But I almost fell off from my side of the bed when, just as I was making an escape under the bed covers, I heard her saying “Why don’t you think about doing an MBA?”

I quickly switched off the lights, closed my eyes and cursed myself for not having thrown the guitar away when I had the chance. I made a promise to myself to give it away to any of my near or distant relatives or friends or the first passing stranger or even the society sweeper, the first chance I get.

Nostalgia, sometimes, definitely stinks!