The Flat Disaster

Having been an extremely active non-blogger for the past 6 months has left me with a lot of self-invented,nonsensical ideas and what better place to get rid of them than the blog. Its not that there's been nothing to share about in the past 6 months; in fact, its quite the opposite so I'll try to break down the time period chronologically. Taking a cue from the now-behind-bars-but-still-adored-by-me famous Mr. Julian Assange, I intend to release the cables(read blog posts) one by one over the next few days/weeks/months/years so as to keep my non existent readerbase on their toes.

 Ever since we moved into a real cheap 2 BHK with pathetic surroundings in the month of March (due to lack of options and mostly due to the fact that it was close to my friends' home), we had been on the lookout for a better home and we didn't mind paying that extra bit for that. Then, one fine day while I was on bench and lucky to have got hold of a system here in Infosys Hyderabad kiosk, I read an advertisement which said a certain gentleman was looking for 2 people to share a 3 BHK flat. 8 hours later we were at the flat and beat our nearest competitor by about 5 steps in handing over the advance(It was in 5-figures, in case anyone was curious to  know) to one Saurabh (whom we had met barely 15 mins ago and who, as you would have guessed, was going to be our new flatmate). Thus, we sealed the deal for our new home and were elated. The new flat, despite costing us about 63% more than the current one (blame my hopeless CAT preparation for reporting the figure in percentage... more on how my CAT preparation started and ended well before the actual exam(which, by the way, I eventually took) will follow later), had its benefits:

1. It was closer to the office, which means we saved Rs. 5 per trip and Rs. 10 in total (for my fellow college/office/flat/bench - mate Sagar it meant saving Rs. 20 per day, given his swipe-in -> breakfast -> come home -> sleep whole day at home -> dinner @ office -> swipe-out time table).
2. It was at a walkable distance from the famous and highly unhygienic Kothaguda junction, where we were so used to feast ourselves on probably the filthiest paani puri in Hyderabad which I don't know how still tasted great.
3. My friends' home was still walkable(if you can walk about 1.5 kms without ending up rolling around on the roadside gasping for water and breath, in no particular order)
4. Reason 2 was too tempting.
5. The surroundings were far better and it came across as an excellent strategical outpost from where to lauch the long awaited "mission-girlfriend-hunt", which had been pushed to the backburner during the past week and "mission-flat-hunt" had taken over.

So, the deal was struck some 20 days in advance and we were all set to move in from the 1st of August. Moving into a new city, playing cricket for a month in office, getting a good flat, being put on bench for a seemingly indefinite period, it made me believe that nothing could go wrong in life. There was no communication at all between us and our new flat mate for the next 20 days or so, as he was busy with his Investment Banking work and I was busy.... well... technically I didn't have any work but then, why disclose all your cards up front? I was busy pretending that I was not such a useless person in office and actually it was the office work which kept me from calling/visiting him to pay the remainder of the amount.

Sunday, 1st August, 11:00 am: I was offloading the tempo containing our beloved TV, Refrigerator, tables, chairs, etc from the tempo into the lift of Bhavya Shanti Sadan, our new home. Ten minutes later, I was shaking hands with Saurabh, who was welcoming us into the new house, which, at that instant, also contained 4 other people.

Saurabh: "Man, you sure you people are bachelors? Mast samaan-vamaan lekar aa gaye tum log to!"

Jayant: (trying to act cool and unpertrubed at the sight of 4 unexpected people in the flat) "Yeah, what can we do? We're so addicted to Sports and Beer. Hence the TV and refrigerator respectively"

(laughter all around, even from those 4 unwanted people who were sitting too far to hear the conversation)

After exchanging the usual pleasantaries and enquiring about when exactly did the ex-occupant intended to clear up the mess he had left in the flat, if at all, we were on our way back in the same luggage tempo.

"God, this flat has brought about good omen from the heavens. We've started saving from the first day itself", I murmured to Sagar and Anubhav, who had come up to help with the luggage transportation.
Same day, 08:00 pm: We were at Shilpa Park, home to Sagar,Anubhav,Vinit and Urvi (and also to us on weekends) playing our newly purchased ultra-modern 6-player LUDO when my cell displayed,

Saurabh Flatmate
Calling...

Jayant: "Hello Saurabh, what's up?"

Saurabh: "Yaar, there's a bad news. Owner called me right now and we have to vacate the flat by 1st September."

Jayant: "But... how can he? We've just moved in..."

Saurabh: "Sorry man, we had an agreement of a month's notice from either party and he's sticking to it."

Well, that pretty  much concludes the flat-hunt part of the story. There are more disasters to follow and if I manage to retain the enthusiasm, they will be out shortly.