Sweet Success
Life has taught me time and again that it simply isn’t a cake walk. I re-learnt this lesson once again last weekend.
Too many things happened in a span of 48 hours and I definitely don’t intend to bug you with all the details of how I got scorched in the sun, got garnished with dust ‘n smoke and felt like a cave gal.
If you wondering what I was up to- no, I wasn’t working in some quarry, in pursuit of adventure. I would rather curl up on the couch than go in for any such tedious adventure, if you know me well. I was actually out on a house hunt.
After getting to Bangalore, I had meticulously planned to spend the 1st one week at a guest house and find a house for myself over the weekend. It went on pretty well till Friday, excepting for the smell of something burning and an ugly, big hole in my pocket. The real ‘fun’ started on Saturday.
I was up early, bright and beaming, like a second sun. I was gonna rent a house all by myself for the 1st time and felt very grown up. I had a sandwich and some orange juice for breakfast, all the while dreaming about the kind of house that I would choose and how I would make MY OWN sandwich and orange juice in MY kitchen. I put on my red Adidas cap, thrust the city map that I had bought the previous evening into my pocket and was all set to leave by 8am. The show started giving clear indications of moving towards being a glorious flop when the real–estate broker did not turn up till 8.30am. He wasn’t going to be there today. For whatever reason, he was gonna come the next day. He ‘promised’.
Very soon, I found myself straying the roads of Koramangala with one of those yellow colored ad papers in one hand and my mobile in the other. The main roads in Koramangala were not the least bit like the lanes inside. The lanes didn’t show any trace of sophistication what so ever and were perfect gullies. I checked out some of the weirdest and funniest dwellings in the city that afternoon. All of them were considerably huge. One of the houses opened straight into the bedroom and had a succession of rooms, all in a straight line, one after the other. In another one, every guest of yours, who crosses the threshold of your house, will have to pass through the kitchen before he/she can get to the drawing room. The highlight was a house with a loo attached to the kitchen (Is this a GIGO concept or what? for God’s sake). I am not one of those secretive people who would keep my life completely out of reach from my kith and kin ‘n am no celebrity, but taking every person at my door step straight into my kitchen or bed room is a bit too far fetched by any standards. Much more far fetched and unappetizing is the idea of having a loo inside my kitchen.
These challenges did not break my resolve to find a house by the end of the two days. I tried every source I could think of and people definitely were kind. Only that their kindness did not yield the desired result. The rest of the two days passed on with uncomfortable auto rides, attempting to filter out traces of oxygen somewhere amidst all the carbon monoxide, by holding a handkerchief over the nose and mouth, calling up friends, aunts, uncles, real-estate guys and distant cousins (I never even knew of the existence of some of these relatives till Saturday), munching something or the other for lunch, waiting for people on road sides and in restaurants and getting shocked by the layout of some of these house.
By 6.30 pm on Sunday, all the optimism had drained out of my system and I was kinda sure that I would have to continue staying in the same guest house for another week (at least) .To aim for something and to not be able to achieve it- gives you a pretty bad feeling.
I wasn’t gonna give up. I decided to keep looking till 9pm. Fortune favored me finally (Fortune does favor the brave, you know?!). I found a house to my liking by 8.30 or so- many thanks to a friend of mine.
I got back to the guest house at around 10pm, exhausted but triumphant. Life isn’t a cake walk and success doesn’t come easily (not always), but it’s the hardships involved that make it sweeter when it finally comes. I hit the bed at around 11pm with the sweet taste of success still lingering in my mind. I would soon be making sandwiches, orange juice and very many things in MY kitchen :D
Too many things happened in a span of 48 hours and I definitely don’t intend to bug you with all the details of how I got scorched in the sun, got garnished with dust ‘n smoke and felt like a cave gal.
If you wondering what I was up to- no, I wasn’t working in some quarry, in pursuit of adventure. I would rather curl up on the couch than go in for any such tedious adventure, if you know me well. I was actually out on a house hunt.
After getting to Bangalore, I had meticulously planned to spend the 1st one week at a guest house and find a house for myself over the weekend. It went on pretty well till Friday, excepting for the smell of something burning and an ugly, big hole in my pocket. The real ‘fun’ started on Saturday.
I was up early, bright and beaming, like a second sun. I was gonna rent a house all by myself for the 1st time and felt very grown up. I had a sandwich and some orange juice for breakfast, all the while dreaming about the kind of house that I would choose and how I would make MY OWN sandwich and orange juice in MY kitchen. I put on my red Adidas cap, thrust the city map that I had bought the previous evening into my pocket and was all set to leave by 8am. The show started giving clear indications of moving towards being a glorious flop when the real–estate broker did not turn up till 8.30am. He wasn’t going to be there today. For whatever reason, he was gonna come the next day. He ‘promised’.
Very soon, I found myself straying the roads of Koramangala with one of those yellow colored ad papers in one hand and my mobile in the other. The main roads in Koramangala were not the least bit like the lanes inside. The lanes didn’t show any trace of sophistication what so ever and were perfect gullies. I checked out some of the weirdest and funniest dwellings in the city that afternoon. All of them were considerably huge. One of the houses opened straight into the bedroom and had a succession of rooms, all in a straight line, one after the other. In another one, every guest of yours, who crosses the threshold of your house, will have to pass through the kitchen before he/she can get to the drawing room. The highlight was a house with a loo attached to the kitchen (Is this a GIGO concept or what? for God’s sake). I am not one of those secretive people who would keep my life completely out of reach from my kith and kin ‘n am no celebrity, but taking every person at my door step straight into my kitchen or bed room is a bit too far fetched by any standards. Much more far fetched and unappetizing is the idea of having a loo inside my kitchen.
These challenges did not break my resolve to find a house by the end of the two days. I tried every source I could think of and people definitely were kind. Only that their kindness did not yield the desired result. The rest of the two days passed on with uncomfortable auto rides, attempting to filter out traces of oxygen somewhere amidst all the carbon monoxide, by holding a handkerchief over the nose and mouth, calling up friends, aunts, uncles, real-estate guys and distant cousins (I never even knew of the existence of some of these relatives till Saturday), munching something or the other for lunch, waiting for people on road sides and in restaurants and getting shocked by the layout of some of these house.
By 6.30 pm on Sunday, all the optimism had drained out of my system and I was kinda sure that I would have to continue staying in the same guest house for another week (at least) .To aim for something and to not be able to achieve it- gives you a pretty bad feeling.
I wasn’t gonna give up. I decided to keep looking till 9pm. Fortune favored me finally (Fortune does favor the brave, you know?!). I found a house to my liking by 8.30 or so- many thanks to a friend of mine.
I got back to the guest house at around 10pm, exhausted but triumphant. Life isn’t a cake walk and success doesn’t come easily (not always), but it’s the hardships involved that make it sweeter when it finally comes. I hit the bed at around 11pm with the sweet taste of success still lingering in my mind. I would soon be making sandwiches, orange juice and very many things in MY kitchen :D
posted by Xena at 11:36 PM
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