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.


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