My quest for accomodation

Mission Objective: Hunt for hideout.

Team Count: 2 + 1

Deadline: 48 Hours.

Now coming back to normal mode… ;) it was my day 2 in the city, and my next objective was to find an accommodation. After stuffing my ‘paapi-pet’ with bread and scrambled eggs ('musafiro ka khana' – as termed by an elderly gentleman I know… but I don’t find any connection between eggs and musafir…??? Do you..??), me and Nihar were waiting by the ‘sutte’ ki dukan for Amit. We were not the only ones that day… every 5 mins you can spot a group of guys carrying newspaper advertisements rolled in their hands pass by… According to information from an unknown source… “more than 5000 freshers have arrived this weekend in the city… and finding proper accommodation won’t be that easy”. However the statistics of 5000 freshers didn’t bother me much.

After a small chat with amit and being done over a ‘chai’ and ‘sutta’, we were onto our mission… our first destination was a Punjabi aunty who was the PG owner… the telephonic conversation with her lasted for around 3-4 mins, the description of the rooms she gave was enough to convince me that this is the kind of room I wanted… and we were heading to the address she gave us…

There was no aunty rather a ‘bhaiya’ (had it been Chennai it would have been an ‘anna’ but here it was ‘bhaiya’ or ‘boss’… ;)) who was supposed to show the rooms to everyone like us… he led us through a narrow staircase which seemed to me like a ‘BHAI(don wala bhai) ke adde wala staircase’ as they show in hindi movies…

“double room hai na boss..?’’

“haa sir… mai apko double bed wala room hi dikha raha hu…”

“bathroom attached hai na…?”

“haa sir bilkul…”

After having a look at the room the meaning of “double room” and “attached bathroom” had changed for me… double room for that time meant a small room with two cots… but one stacked on the top of other…

“aise to do kya dus bhi ajayenge… tu upar soyega to bistar tut jayega be…”

that was the only thing that made us smile at that point of time…

Attached bathroom meant that a single bathroom at the center of the floor which is to be shared by three “double” now “double-bedded” rooms… the advantage of that bathroom( as said by the ‘bhaiya’) was that it is equidistant from all the rooms… ;)

After having refreshed our vocabularies of slangs… we headed for our next destination… again a Punjabi PG aunty… “Phone pe kya baat kare… khud hi aake dekh lo beta..” that’s what she said…

This time the room was much better in terms of attached bathroom and the double bedroom… it was a “not that small” room with two beds… giving just the space two indivisuals would need… on seeing the bathroom door at the corner of the room I was relieved..( sahi mein attached hai…!!! ;)), but the main surprise of that day was waiting inside the bathroom…

“Aunty yaha pehle cricketers rehte the kya..???”

The 'bat-room' was that long, it could accommodate a ‘spin’ bowler and a batsman, a wicket keeper along with stumps, leaving enough space for them for playing ‘nautanki’ cricket… it ran parallel to the full length of the room…!!! but the breadth of the bathroom was restricted to a mere 1.5 – 1.75 feet…sad there was no place for a silly point fielder or a leg umpire… ;) (just enough for the water closet to fit in…!!!!) are bhai… cricket pitch tha….!!!!

“Aunty yaha security ka kya arrangement hai…?”

“Beta waise to yaha security ki koi problem nehi hai… uski chinta na karo…”

“Aunty yaha koi window ya phir koi ventilator to hai hi nehi…?”

“Nei beta who dekho upar ventilator ….”

Yes, it was… a rectangular opening in the wall through which a ‘full-fledged’ and ‘complete’ :) man could creep in and carry away whatever he wants…. And her words poured back in my mind “….security ki koi problem nehi hai…. ;)”

That was one of the ‘unique’ kind of bathrooms one could get to C-ee… and while she was trying to lure us in to taking her PG... I had already decided the next destination… it was an uncle PG… a shy fellow who introduced himself as ‘X’… with a big smiling face showed us the rooms….

Finally the bathrooms were like bathrooms and the ventilations were ventilations… and my quest for accommodation was over….phew…!!!!!

Mission status: mission accomplished sir..!!!! ;d

Time : 8.45 hours.


Cron

My first blog..!!!

It was june 19th…, a typical summer morning of Guwahati… where the sun starts spilling its heat early in the morning. I woke up half heartedly for one last time at my home…last time only for that period of time okay ;)… completely filled with a different emotion which I never had in these years, a feeling of excitement to start my career… a totally different journey as well as saying adieu to an wonderfull journey which we call the ‘student life’. A very prominent difference among these was, I had a feeling that in just another few hours… home seems to be far away from where I would see it then, ‘away’ both in terms of the physical distance and also the limitations and responsibilities of our jobs… there will no more be winter vacations, summer holidays, puja holidays and bihu holidays as well, the sense of elation which we had coming home during these vacations will no more be there… as of now what we have was ‘casual leave’ and ‘sick leave’ …

At around 6:15 am, the train arrived at the platform… Nihar (my colleague) was already there with his dad… the chat with friends and family was interrupted by a female voice on the loudspeaker… “train no 2608 Bangalore Express bound for Bangalore is ready to leave from platform no 6….”. After waving a bye to everybody there we settled in our cabin. Oh! Did I say that we are travelling AC 2 Tier this time, (Company is paying, samja karo yaar..!) otherwise we would have taken up a flight… ;))

The journey to Bangalore was for 3 days and 2 nights… watching the green fields of Assam, Bengal and Orissa through the tinted glass of the window… and this time I was hoping that we don’t get caught for smoking in the train… I have a record of getting caught by Andhra Pradesh Vigillance Squad for smoking everytime I have travelled this route by train… ;) but as a whole this journey was damn entertaining in the company of an old retired gentleman who was sharing the cabin with us… he never stopped cracking jokes and passing witty comments on all of us… (of which he later apologised at Bangalore station , in case he had hurted us unknowingly… ). I felt that this world really needs much more than a 'few' characters like him… to spread some smiles - “without any reason”

Stepping down at Bangalore station was a completely different experience…. The energy of the city was different.. this station welcomes a large number of “to-be” IT professionals everyday… I feel that it’s the dreams that are welcomed… the dreams which everyone like me carries deep in him when he starts with his carreer… more than the embracing the dreams , this city nurtures them with a lots of oppurtunities… and I felt great standing at the gateway to this city.. “Bangalore Central Station”.

23rd june was not much of a special day except for the fact that it was my first day at XYZ… and the day on which for the first time in my life I had to put on a sweater in the month of JUNE…!!!!!!!!! and for all those who have stayed in Chennai for more than a year… and forgot what a sweater is… sweater is an woollen garment which we wear in winters… mostly in December and January… the above doesn’t apply to Chennai’s climate.., there is nothing called winter there… ;) (Thanks to the climate of bangalore...!!!)

Waiting in the queue for entry passes… watching those faces… excitement along with lots of wheres, hows, whens imprinted on them.. a lots of our college friends were called in the same batch… sharing laughters and incidents there… and all of a sudden I realized I had moved to front of the queue…

After a 5 mins walk from the gate… I decieded to take that sweater off… ( Now I need not bother anymore that I was wearing a sweater in the month of JUNE….!!! ;)) we were seated in hall no 3 where we completed the joining formalities… phew..!!! I had never signed so many pages in my entire life ;)

And the thought of a “death by power-point” session after lunch was giving me a strong urge for a “sutta” when one of friends yelled.. “yaha bagal mein tapri nehi hai... ki lunch ke baad hi sutte ke liye nikal liye… niche smoking zone hai..” but none of us were carrying “stock” that day.. so I had to satisfy myself with a polo… and that too a broken one… ( two mint with no holes… ;))

As I was expectating they screwed up the spelling of my name on my ID Card… ya I am used to the ‘H’ forcefully inserted in my middle name… making it sound like s female name “JYOTHI”… and when I saw my own photo printed on the ID Card I myself could not stop laughing… I am not disclosing what my friends commented.. ;)

It was already 8.00 pm when we were done for the day… there was a bus waiting for us… but my friend insited “bus mein bahut bheer hai yaar… bheer mein chalna bher-bakriyo ki aadat hai… hum to auto mein jayenge… ;)” and the bus left… the last best thing that happened the day…. There was not a single auto to be found on that road, X n me were all alone and Y had his bike with him… impatiently we both got on Y's bike ( yeh baburao ka style hai..!!! ;)).... escaping from traffic police… snaking through the bangalore’s traffic laden streets….

Back home chicken biriyani was waiting for us….!!!!


Cron