So.. though my first two months in Delhi seemed to be bad.. (refer my previous post), now that I think about it, they were the most comfortable. I am sure Mahalakshmi would agree..
Winters in Delhi are quite harsh.. atleast compared to all the places I have lived in India. But I loved it.. At peak noon, the roads would be so foggy..
And it was best feeling to slip into the thick quilts after coming back shivering from dinner. We (rather... it was me) found it nearly impossible to get out of it in the morning... :-)
Towards the end of december, our friends from college, John, Gowri and Sandhya too arrived in Delhi for their project. They lived in another area in a room for rent.. We went out and explored Delhi with them. It was a lot of fun. I had a very comfortable feeling being with them. With them, I could let my guard down and be sure that they wont do anything in-human.
And the most memorable time I had in Delhi was on new year's eve, also the eve of Sandhya's birthday.. :-) :-) Mahalakshmi and I stayed over in their room. It was a riot..
Wanting to do something different, we got an ice-cream instead of a birthday cake. So I was thinking that we have to break the tradition of smearing the birthday baby's face with cake... but the pic below shows otherwise..
So now, let me tell you a little about the place where John and co. stayed! :-P
The area was called "Katwariasarai". It was near IIT Delhi and opposite to Indian Statistical Inst. Seems decent right?? Thats what I too felt when I first got down at the bus stand, waiting for John. Then he came and guided us in a labyrinth of a market, with roads so narrow that not more than 3 people can walk and it was filled with people.. mostly men..Mahalakshmi later told me that half the men there were drunk..she would be like, "be careful..he is drunk"..and I would wonder how I miss these things.. and an open porno poster lying in the middle of the road spoke a lot about the people who live there..
there were so many shops, all of them looking identical.. the "road" was very messy.. open garbage bins in such a crowded place definitely makes things worse.. and of course, dogs. It took me more than 5 guided visits inside that maze to find my way there on my own.
In short, not a good place to stay. And that too for a girl, a BIG NO. But we could no longer take up the nonsense going on in our PG. And the fact that 2 girls, Sandhya and Gowri too live there and dint face any problems, we decided to get another room for rent near their apartment. Having John for company raised our morale. We decided to shift there and be together with them.
February 1st, we again struggled with our bags and went through the strenuous task of shifting it..Mahalakshmi and I faced the after effects for the next 3 days..
To be honest, when we saw our room, we were so happy. It was living in a small house of our own..So the very evening, we settled down in our new home and arranged everything very neatly. I remember Sandhya wishing she could have got a room like ours. So tired from all the work, we had a deep sleep. We woke up next morning to start a new day from the new place. The place dint look so scary in the morning.. and we went off to lab. After the day's work, we spent the evening having dinner with Bharat anna and Rajat, our friend from lab. When they dropped us to our place, they were shocked while walking through the crowded "market-maze".. we assured them that its not so bad and we'll be safe... as we were talking, we reached our home, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw that there was a new, different lock put on our door. I was speechless. The guy next door then tells us that our room had been robbed while we were away and that the key is in a nearby shop. We open the door... I really dont know how to describe what I felt before opening the door. More than being scared, I was angry.. More angry with myself for having decided to stay in such a horrible neighbourhood. I knew that we might face problems.. But I figured that inside the room, we would be safe..
The room was a mess. Every single thing had been opened and strewn across the room. Everything. I hated that person who had the guts to do that. Books, papers, clothes..nothing was left untouched by them. I am very grateful that Bharat anna and Rajat were there with us. We looked through our stuff and it took us a while to see what was missing... hair dryer, laptop headphones, Maha's mobile phone, few silver earrings...
Agreed that we dint loose a lot.. (thank god our laptops were with us). More than anything else, the theft on the 1st day of moving in hurt us emotionally. But I cooled down very soon when I realised that the situation could have a lot worse. And after John, Gow and Sandy joined us and helped us out, I was back to my casual state of mind.. :-)
Mahalakshmi took a heavy toll because of the theft. I dont think she had a good night sleep even once since then as long as we were in Delhi..Believe it or not, I could sleep well even after all this..
We went and complained to our land lady and she consoled us in a hindi accent that I found it very hard to place.. "koi dirr (darr) nahi beti..woh sab bhuke maare aandre hai"... atleast this is what I heard. She assured us that she'll keep an eye on our room and that a theft never happens twice in the same room. But then, we could not risk something like that banking upon her words.. so we started our search for another place to stay and even considered going back to our old PG.
Thankfully we dint have to do that, and by mid of february, we found a working women's PG run by a Christian charity institution and it was great. There were a lot of formalities and personal interviews. And it was clear that they wont let any crazy girls live there. We decided to shift immediately..it was feb 10th..
Spoke to our land lady and told her that we are shifting on 15th and she told us to pay half month rent. we agreed and paid.. however the next day, we got an angry call from her son who is a "lawyer" and he started blasting us about ethics and paying the rent has nothing to do with the issue that we were robbed in broad daylight while staying in his house..and that too within a day of moving.. apparently it is not his job to ensure a tiny bit of security for his tenants, but only to collect the rent.. he went on to jabber that "anything" can happen to us on the roads outside too and that we cannot expect anyone to help us.. and he ended his "case" by saying that we are the ones who are being money minded..
I dint cry even when our house got robbed.. but that conversation brought me into tears. It was an open statement that no one cares about anyone else in Delhi. I just couldn't digest that people can be so heartless.. There are atleast a million more polite ways to be diplomatic and explain that there are rules to be followed and that we must pay the full rent. But the way he put it across was the bare truth.. the way things are.. More than any frustration towards the robbers, I wanted to kick this "lawyer" so hard in his *@$*$.. Somehow, I never thought an educated "lawyer" would stand by a such a selfish, perverted philosophy.
We decided..to hell with the "lawyer" lets give him his damn money and let him know what an ass he is. Next day, we had to go to submit some documents at the hostel and locked our suitcases and made sure nothing valuable was left behind.. we went to the hostel, submitted the documents, and returned immediately. It couldnt have been more than 45 minutes.. We returned to find that our room had been broken in and our landlady was ready there to inform us that our house had been robbed...again.
This time, both of us just felt like laughing. The fact that the break in happened within 45 minutes, the not so nice phone call from the lady's son, the fact that the landlady was informed about it so promptly and was conveniently present at the scene of crime.. it convinced me that it was her and her goons..probably those guys from the tea stall who saw us leave the area..
We dint waste another minute there and packed our bags immediately and wondered how the witch would break the news to her "lawyer son" that we moved out without paying the remaining half of his precious rent...
And ya.. I wasn't worried about them finding us. They had absolutely no details to track us down.. I am sure they dint even have a "namesake" entry of our names..
So.. it was goodbye to Katwariasarai...
I just realised that what happened was the best of the "being robbed twice" scenarios.. I mean.. had they broken in on a sunday when we would have gone out, we most certainly would have left our laptops behind in the room..
We dint loose anything significant.. but gained a lot of experience..
Winters in Delhi are quite harsh.. atleast compared to all the places I have lived in India. But I loved it.. At peak noon, the roads would be so foggy..
And it was best feeling to slip into the thick quilts after coming back shivering from dinner. We (rather... it was me) found it nearly impossible to get out of it in the morning... :-)
Towards the end of december, our friends from college, John, Gowri and Sandhya too arrived in Delhi for their project. They lived in another area in a room for rent.. We went out and explored Delhi with them. It was a lot of fun. I had a very comfortable feeling being with them. With them, I could let my guard down and be sure that they wont do anything in-human.
 |
| Maha, Sandy, Me, Gowri and John @ DLF Mall |
Wanting to do something different, we got an ice-cream instead of a birthday cake. So I was thinking that we have to break the tradition of smearing the birthday baby's face with cake... but the pic below shows otherwise..
 |
| Gowri, me, Sandhya the Bday baby and John with ice cream on our faces |
So now, let me tell you a little about the place where John and co. stayed! :-P
The area was called "Katwariasarai". It was near IIT Delhi and opposite to Indian Statistical Inst. Seems decent right?? Thats what I too felt when I first got down at the bus stand, waiting for John. Then he came and guided us in a labyrinth of a market, with roads so narrow that not more than 3 people can walk and it was filled with people.. mostly men..Mahalakshmi later told me that half the men there were drunk..she would be like, "be careful..he is drunk"..and I would wonder how I miss these things.. and an open porno poster lying in the middle of the road spoke a lot about the people who live there..
there were so many shops, all of them looking identical.. the "road" was very messy.. open garbage bins in such a crowded place definitely makes things worse.. and of course, dogs. It took me more than 5 guided visits inside that maze to find my way there on my own.
In short, not a good place to stay. And that too for a girl, a BIG NO. But we could no longer take up the nonsense going on in our PG. And the fact that 2 girls, Sandhya and Gowri too live there and dint face any problems, we decided to get another room for rent near their apartment. Having John for company raised our morale. We decided to shift there and be together with them.
February 1st, we again struggled with our bags and went through the strenuous task of shifting it..Mahalakshmi and I faced the after effects for the next 3 days..
To be honest, when we saw our room, we were so happy. It was living in a small house of our own..So the very evening, we settled down in our new home and arranged everything very neatly. I remember Sandhya wishing she could have got a room like ours. So tired from all the work, we had a deep sleep. We woke up next morning to start a new day from the new place. The place dint look so scary in the morning.. and we went off to lab. After the day's work, we spent the evening having dinner with Bharat anna and Rajat, our friend from lab. When they dropped us to our place, they were shocked while walking through the crowded "market-maze".. we assured them that its not so bad and we'll be safe... as we were talking, we reached our home, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw that there was a new, different lock put on our door. I was speechless. The guy next door then tells us that our room had been robbed while we were away and that the key is in a nearby shop. We open the door... I really dont know how to describe what I felt before opening the door. More than being scared, I was angry.. More angry with myself for having decided to stay in such a horrible neighbourhood. I knew that we might face problems.. But I figured that inside the room, we would be safe..
The room was a mess. Every single thing had been opened and strewn across the room. Everything. I hated that person who had the guts to do that. Books, papers, clothes..nothing was left untouched by them. I am very grateful that Bharat anna and Rajat were there with us. We looked through our stuff and it took us a while to see what was missing... hair dryer, laptop headphones, Maha's mobile phone, few silver earrings...
Agreed that we dint loose a lot.. (thank god our laptops were with us). More than anything else, the theft on the 1st day of moving in hurt us emotionally. But I cooled down very soon when I realised that the situation could have a lot worse. And after John, Gow and Sandy joined us and helped us out, I was back to my casual state of mind.. :-)
Mahalakshmi took a heavy toll because of the theft. I dont think she had a good night sleep even once since then as long as we were in Delhi..Believe it or not, I could sleep well even after all this..
We went and complained to our land lady and she consoled us in a hindi accent that I found it very hard to place.. "koi dirr (darr) nahi beti..woh sab bhuke maare aandre hai"... atleast this is what I heard. She assured us that she'll keep an eye on our room and that a theft never happens twice in the same room. But then, we could not risk something like that banking upon her words.. so we started our search for another place to stay and even considered going back to our old PG.
Thankfully we dint have to do that, and by mid of february, we found a working women's PG run by a Christian charity institution and it was great. There were a lot of formalities and personal interviews. And it was clear that they wont let any crazy girls live there. We decided to shift immediately..it was feb 10th..
Spoke to our land lady and told her that we are shifting on 15th and she told us to pay half month rent. we agreed and paid.. however the next day, we got an angry call from her son who is a "lawyer" and he started blasting us about ethics and paying the rent has nothing to do with the issue that we were robbed in broad daylight while staying in his house..and that too within a day of moving.. apparently it is not his job to ensure a tiny bit of security for his tenants, but only to collect the rent.. he went on to jabber that "anything" can happen to us on the roads outside too and that we cannot expect anyone to help us.. and he ended his "case" by saying that we are the ones who are being money minded..
I dint cry even when our house got robbed.. but that conversation brought me into tears. It was an open statement that no one cares about anyone else in Delhi. I just couldn't digest that people can be so heartless.. There are atleast a million more polite ways to be diplomatic and explain that there are rules to be followed and that we must pay the full rent. But the way he put it across was the bare truth.. the way things are.. More than any frustration towards the robbers, I wanted to kick this "lawyer" so hard in his *@$*$.. Somehow, I never thought an educated "lawyer" would stand by a such a selfish, perverted philosophy.
We decided..to hell with the "lawyer" lets give him his damn money and let him know what an ass he is. Next day, we had to go to submit some documents at the hostel and locked our suitcases and made sure nothing valuable was left behind.. we went to the hostel, submitted the documents, and returned immediately. It couldnt have been more than 45 minutes.. We returned to find that our room had been broken in and our landlady was ready there to inform us that our house had been robbed...again.
This time, both of us just felt like laughing. The fact that the break in happened within 45 minutes, the not so nice phone call from the lady's son, the fact that the landlady was informed about it so promptly and was conveniently present at the scene of crime.. it convinced me that it was her and her goons..probably those guys from the tea stall who saw us leave the area..
We dint waste another minute there and packed our bags immediately and wondered how the witch would break the news to her "lawyer son" that we moved out without paying the remaining half of his precious rent...
And ya.. I wasn't worried about them finding us. They had absolutely no details to track us down.. I am sure they dint even have a "namesake" entry of our names..
So.. it was goodbye to Katwariasarai...
I just realised that what happened was the best of the "being robbed twice" scenarios.. I mean.. had they broken in on a sunday when we would have gone out, we most certainly would have left our laptops behind in the room..
We dint loose anything significant.. but gained a lot of experience..
