Mumbai - Arrival
The golden
period was nearing end at college (probably the last time I’ll be studying full
time) joining letters had started flowing in. Mine came in too with joining
date as 1st June and location – Mumbai. I was fine with it as a lot
of my friends had got their joining location as Mumbai and the idea of starting
over in a new city always excites me.
I made some
innocent plans during the two months I got to stay at home before joining like
my budget for accommodation – 8-10k, I would look for a 1RK to stay alone or “compromise”
with a single occupancy room in a 2BHK which I’ll share with another friend,
and something closer to my office which is in Mahalakshmi so that I could avoid
travelling in local altogether (Yes, I was that naïve). I planned my savings
accordingly which had to be at least double of what I used to save before going
for an MBA. I had invested 2 years in education, 12 lakh in only fees, double
the previous savings seemed only a fair enough expectation. I saw a couple of places
online which were more or less similar to what I was looking for. Now, I do
realize God must have been smiling at me in pity all those times.
I arrived in
Mumbai on 30th May as I wanted to look for places on Saturday and
Sunday and finalize something soon so I could shift next Saturday (Yeah sure
laugh all you can, it was my first time in the city). Organization had provided
us accommodation for a week in a hotel in Dadar. Now when I think of it I feel
it was too cruel on the organization’s part to place Mumbai newbies in a place
like Dadar where you could easily get trampled down by the tsunami of people.
Coming back to
my baby steps in Mumbai, I freshened up after reaching the hote where I was put
up for the week – Rammee guestline hotel and started making calls soon after.
It was then that I started sensing trouble. The place that I had my eyes on –
1RK in lower parel, 420 sq ft., fully furnished, for Rs.9000 was already taken
and turned out it was available on sharing and not single occupancy as was
mentioned in the ad. The next calls went like– ‘Number not reachable’, ‘Number
does not exist’, ‘This is a chawl’, ’Toilets are on sharing basis’. After 3-4
hours of calling (to find a number I had to surf multiple websites) I got a
place to see. I wanted an idea of the places on rent and was sure this would
help even if I don’t like the property. The place was in Chinchpokli which is
very close to my office. After some difficulty I reached the place and the
existing tenants (a family) were surprised the owner is still allowing people
to see the place as they had just moved in. The building was almost a km from
the main road and that km was filled with tiny shops, people sitting outside
those tiny shops, lot of police, garbage strewn all over. The police camps made
me particularly suspicious and on walking further I found the reason why. There
stood this huge building staring down at me in pity – The central jail. People had queued up outside to meet their
friends/ family in the jail and it was not a very comforting feeling to imagine
staying in such a neighborhood. This is also because I’m not very comfortable
with police owing to past bad experience dealing with them.
After this I
called a person whose name was listed for two different properties. I assumed
he must be some rich person with multiple flats in Mumbai upon calling I
realized I have met with the inescapable – a
Mumbai Broker. He sent one of his men to show me some properties. He showed
me a 1BHK right behind curry road station, the route to this place seemed a
little shady and I didn’t want to look over my shoulder every time I was
leaving or reaching my place. The next place was a 1BHK near KEM Hospital which
was extremely small but I was still considering it. Later I got to know the
building does not have water supply yet and it will take another couple of
months to get it). No water – well, not a very good idea.
Next day I met a
couple of friends including the girl I was planning to share flat with in case
I found a good 1BHK (By this time sense had prevailed and I had dropped the
idea of even trying to look for a 2BHK). The evening plans of looking for a
place didn’t work out as the broker didn’t pick up my call and by the time he returned
my call (8 p.m.) I felt it was too late to roam around a new city with a
stranger, visiting residential places. Sounded like the perfect recipe for a
crime and being in Mumbai I was trying to be extra cautious.
The weekend
turned out to be only a trailer of what was in store for me in the city. I knew
it was not going to be easy.
Keep Travelling
Manisha
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