Chennai....I landed in Chennai(by bus) from coimbatore to take up my next venture.I had already contacted some brokers to find a house for rent and all of them had assured me "Sir just come von or two days in advancu onnum prechanaey ille we can easily get you a house/flat/PG" and the rent they said seemed to be nominal and I thought ok so its just me going there and I get a place in a jiffy. But some gut feeling(which has never failed me) made me go 4 days in advance which included a weekend.
I had already called up a close family friend of ours(whom I address as uncle) and he asked me to come down and stay with him till I found a house. I was greeted by the exorbidant chennai auto fare(and I thought well if Coimbatore is like that then Chennai ought to be more expensive). I said to myself "sappa matter..don't worry once you figure out the place everything will be fine". Uncle and family were hospitality personified and I had a great day because it was Varalakshmi pooja and I also sang some songs(thanks to their patience :-)
And then it began....uncle said he will accompany me to the place since I was to meet the broker and I did not know anything about chennai. I knew some places thanks to google maps and I was proud of being the tech savvy guy who had figured out the places,advertised in sulekha and managed everything through the internet. I called up the broker and he said one PG twin ,fully furnished,with AC,fridege and all is available...and just 5 minutes from your company....man very impressive.Now all I have to do is go see the place pay the advance and then shift. So simble you know...Then I reached the place...after travelling for an hour and a half the broker took us by bike along a dusty road and his "justu five minutes" had already exceeded 1o minutes by bike.I thought ok walking for 10-15 minutes will be a good exercise. We reached a house and then we went upstairs. There was no fridge,no AC. He said sir they will fit it soon....and then he showed me the room. It was about 18*10 and there were 2 cots already. And he said sire you can put your cot there. I asked "what about the other two?" Well sir there are 2 people occupying this room and you have to share with them and there is a common bathroom there. I asked him the rent and he said Rs.5000 per head.
Oh my God this is the limit. I walked out of the place. I called up all the other "contact numbers" I had and all of them replied"already occupied".We decided to get back home and I had this feeling that this was not going to be easy at all. We reached home at night cause we had started late afternoon and the places is quite far off. Then I rummaged through the internet. Found as many numbers as possible. Then we also rummaged the news papers next morning. I had already made 20 calls the previous day and I had around 30 numbers with me today. I called up each number and the response was one of the below:
"Sorry sire aalready aacupied"
"Sire this house is new very big and it is far caarporate use and then rent is Rs.30000"
"vokay family aar bachelor...voh bacheloraaa we don't give to bachelors sire"
(I certainly did not want to get married to get a house...and though it did sound the easiest way out)
And in all I had just 2-3 numbers which said they have a house. I went again and scouted the whole day.The first 2 were absolute waste and then on the way we got one more person who said we could see a house the next day. Uncle had also spoken to his relatives in that area. We then visited all the places...most areas were not good and the houses were worse. And the rent charged was nothing less than Rs.5000....I was willing to pay that but none of the houses semmed worth it.I had one option of moving in with a person in a 1 BHK. I called him up but then lady fortune deserted me there when he told me that he decided to take in his buddy. Hmmm so much for the promise he gave that he would keep it open till sunday evening. Then we finally reached the last number.
Finally it was a flat,rent was around Rs.10000 but I could find roommates. And the house was good and the locality was ok.Only thing is I had to walk for about 25 min each day to the place where my company bus would come.That would mean a walk to nearly 1 hr a day. But then I thought thats the best to do considering the situation. And finally on monday I shifted. I have not included some more funny experiences with some really weird people since this has already become very lenghthy.
Then came the ordeal of finding a roommate. First I advertised in the internet and I was sort of becoming a house broker expert...calling people and showing them the house and explaining this and that 2 BHK bath attached and so on and so forth. Finally a colleague of mine was looking for a roommate to take a house and I told him I have a house and I am looking for a "house mate " and he liked the house. Finally he moved in. I had thus scouted almost a large chunk of chennai to find a house. I thank the internet and our family friend uncle (who accompanied me everytwhere and helped me a lot)with all my heart..cause without them I would have never found one.
Among my experiences the real disappointment was when the brokers turned out to be turncourts. Overall coming from Bangalore where there was an air of sophistication, here I was disappointed by the way they interacted with you. But I guess may be thats because I did not have to interact with that many brokers/house owners to get a house in Bangalore.I had found one in just half a day.I like Bangalore better cause yes the weather is too good. The infrastructure is much better. I do hear that the sub urban trains are a boon to chennai but you need to get used to it to like it. And above all people TRUST BACHELORS.
So my overall first impression considering that I melted like butter under the sweltering heat of disappointments was "Chennai enney poda vennai endradhu"-thats a famous dialogue by comedian vivek in a movie. And yes he is right. But then my workplace is good and my current bread(sorry idli)is here and perhaps I will learn to like it :-)
