Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The ditty that Eliza Dolittle once hummed in My Fair Lady came back: 8220;All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air8230;8221; My close acquaintances came to be property dealers and my required reading was the 8216;To Let8217; sections of the weekend newspapers. House hunting in the city is a full-time vocation.
Delhi landlords come up with the strangest 8216;clauses8217;. An elderly couple said they wanted to rent their house to married couples only, but they don8217;t want children running around ruining their nice house. One didn8217;t want women/ girls as tenants. Another said, he wanted only girls 8212; but girls who come back home by 7 pm. An elderly 8216;aunty8217; referred to me as 8220;such a sweet girl8221;. She said she would love to have me as a tenant, but that there was a problem. She slept early. So she may be disturbed if I walked up the stairs at 10 pm. Even though she lived on the ground floor, and the flat she was renting was on the third. 8220;If you have to come late, come back around 5 am. That8217;s the time I get up,8221; she told me with a straight face.
By that point I simply had had enough. It was then that I hit upon an ingenious idea: do away with the landlord factor altogether. I resolved that I would only take a place where the landlord did not live in the same building. So now the new address I8217;m moving to is seven kilometres away from my landlady8217;s home. I8217;ve had to make a few compromises, true. I will now have to wake up at an outrageously early hour to switch on the water pump for myself and check the electricity and water meters.
But, on the whole, it8217;s a small price to pay to keep at an arm8217;s length busybodies in the city who also happen to have houses to rent.
