BRAToSPHERE

Category: Funny

  • House Hunting

    One of my colleagues pointed me to this article where a celebrity was denied accommodation in Mumbai. It reminded me of my own troubles in finding a house.

    I have stayed in five cities in the last five plus years that I have been working, and have changed seven houses since then.

    Right since my early Delhi days, to Bangalore, Hubli, Mumbai and now Gurgaon, one thing that has always remained common across each of these cities is the pain associated with house hunting.

    If it is the astronomical amount demanded in the form of deposit in Bangalore, it is the high rentals demanded in Mumbai that becomes the sore point. The fact that I would be  a single bachelor staying in the house any which ways got seventy percent of the houses out of my realms. And this Anti-bachelor resonated in all of the cities without exception.

    The most troublesome place to find a house is Mumbai. As it is popularly said in Mumbai, getting a roof on your head is the toughest part, everything else can be sorted.

    The worse thing here, among other things, is the lease expiry issue. The lease is always made for eleven months and the owner has the complete right to kick you out of the house with no reasons whatsoever. This in spite of having a strict “no party at my place” rule to your friends, in spite of having a travelling job and rarely staying in the house and in spite of having no visitors at all.

    I believe I am like the ideal tenant to have. The real tenant was not me at all! It was my stuff which needed a roof and I had to pay a huge monthly premium to let it be. I was out most of the time.

    The other worse thing in Mumbai is the concept of a “co-operative housing society”. The whole purpose of such entities seems to be to ensure that the rental process becomes difficult. Even the owner has no say most of the time.

    Non-Vegetarian? Sorry!

    South Indian? Sorry!

    From South India? Even then sorry!

    Bachelor? Well, non-starter this one is.

    Bachelor is the word that every landlord shuns like plague. So much that many a brokers suggested that I lie that my Mom would stay with me, or even go to the extent of lying that I was married!

    Things here in Gurgaon seem to be slightly better. That I think is more a function of the huge supply!

    Hopefully I would not have to embark on this journey again any soon.

  • Stuck at at the Airport

    Sitting at the airport lounge, and typing fastidiously over endless cups of coffee has now become a norm. With all the travel, airports sure have become a second home, and airport lounges, an extra room to my own 1 bhk in Mumbai.

    No kidding, but I actually used to love the feeling of being at an airport. I have always liked it. Guess it stemmed from my love for traveling. The airport gave me the peace of mind and the relaxation hours that was otherwise tough to find. Airports (and of course airplanes) were the perfect venues to catch up with reading. Airports were always fun.

    The above still holds true and I still completely enjoy the experience of flying, unless of course it is on a Saturday night!

    The agony amplifies with the fact that there is a party on in the metropolis and I am getting late, really late to get there before it is all out and dry! I was anyways getting late to the party, and now with the delay I hopefully would not be disturbing puking slumber!

    To add to the fire is the fact that I was not available in the metropolis last weekend too due to work commitments. This weekend too, one day is spent working and the Saturday night is spent typing away at the airport.

    The final straw to the fury – the flight gets delayed by a full one and a half hours and counting. So the initially scheduled time of departure of 9:55PM now stands at 11:30 PM, and the crew thinks she is being sweet by saying, “this is the time of departure is as of now”.

    So now I have an additional 95 minutes to kill to the previous 115 minutes( i had come to the airport at 8PM itself for a 9:55PM flight!) and 210 minutes are long even by Hindi movie length standards. At this time I was had made up my mind of leasing a private jet about which I read on this website, but as the ticket was in my hand and I had given my bags as check-in, I could not do much.

    Technical snag they say, Jet Airways, why don’t you just discard the plane, or maybe have a standby plane for such exigencies. Maybe you can charge a 100 buck more on each of your tickets to pay for the standby aircrafts. 100 more bucks to the already expensive flight ticket would not pinch greatly.

    Oh! Jet Airways is busy sleeping around with Etihad and such “small” difficulties to a “domestic” passenger would not really matter to Mr. Goyal anymore.

    So what exactly can one do in such situations, other than staring at fellow passengers that is. I can maybe :

    • Browse through the bookstore and make mental and maybe digital note of all the books you want to read. (You can of course later check up the prices online and then consider buying them!)
    • While you are at the bookstore, you can actually read up all the interesting articles from The Economist. This is if standing and reading is your thing.

    Well, you cannot do the above two if you are the Ahmedabad Airport, as the book store owner rates his sleep at a higher priority than catering to stranded passengers like you. The bookstore is shut!

    • You can sit at the free access lounge and keep ordering food.

    This option again cannot be exercised at the Ahmedabad airport, as some smart architect thought having the lounge before the check in area made more sense than having it after the security check in.

    • Convince those noisy over fed rich Gujju kids for a flash mob. Not really recommended again at the Ahmedabad airport.
    •  Keep munching all that you can eat at the airport. Well, would not take long if you are the Ahmedabad airport departures. How much could one possible take to taste from Subway, HavMor icecreams and 2 tea shops?
    • Do something that you have wanting to be doing for long, but have not been getting the time for – BLOG!!!

    You know which option i chose!

  • Relevance of the New Year

    The New Year is here, and it is now upon us – treat it like one more year, resolve to take this THE year or worse, 2013 is a bad year.

    Which state of mind are you in?

    For those of you who think 2013 is going to be a bad year, as 13 is unlucky and all, just get to China. Number 13 is known to be lucky amongst the Chinese people.( the reason for the same is  “This sounds like “one life, one lifetime” in both Mandarin and Cantonese, and is often used romantically, akin to “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part” in English”). Source : Wiki

    All these years, I always wondered the relevance of the New Year eve. It is just a date change. And just because the year is slated to have 365 days, it occurs once in 365 days. That is all. It is just a mathematical convenience. This thought helped me avoid wait till 31st December to make a resolve. I decide to go to the gym, I go. I don’t wait for the year to change. Simple.

    We treat the 31st December as one reason to party (and rightly so), and a time we need to make a resolution. Almost like it is the in thing to do and we need to make a resolution. Why is it so important to wait for the year to change?

    My friend in cigarette business tells me that the sales of cigarettes goes down every January, and this is obviously due to the many lakhs who decide that 1st January is the day to kick the butt. He also told me that the sales are back to normal by the last weeks of January and remains normal then onwards. They also manage to put up a meager 2% growth on yoy basis.

    The interesting fact mentioned by my friend is, that the cigarette sales goes up every year in December. Now there are many factors that could lead to this – 31 days in the month, festive time, everyone is vacationing and partying, etc. I personally believe the real reason is that everyone is on a smoking pree, thinking that they would quit any which ways on 1st January. The balance is made. The slump in smoking the first 15 days of the year is more than made up for in the last 15 days of the year.

    I have taken the example of cigarette smoking as it is the most common resolution taken by people all over the world. The same applies to any other resolution. You decide to do something, or to quit something basis a date change, it obviously would not stand the test of time as it does not come from the heart.

    So what exactly is the importance of New Year’s Eve, other than being one long party evening and a holiday? For me, the New Year’s Eve is the right time for reflection. It is the time for one to reflect where they were last year, and where they hope to go in the New Year. Career, personal life, financial life, carnal life.. er! You get the drift right!

    Chill, I think the resolution part is better and more interesting. I have made up my long list of resolutions for the year – and well, have already given up on most of them. Four days is good enough you see!

    So, what is your resolution for 2013?

    Oh! And By the way, a very very happy new year to all you BRATs!

  • Auto, Sangam cinema Chaloge?

    It has now been a little over a month that I have moved into my new house, and completely love it. The weekends are fun, the view from the 10th floor balcony is just stunning. In a very unscheduled manner, the rains got delayed to September and it was raining all day in the beginning of this month.

    Surprisingly, by a strange act of God, it has not rained a single drop after the Ganesh Pandals have been up from last week. Even the rains God are here to appease the Lord!

    Now, Coming back to my house, the weekends are beautiful and relaxing due to the scenic view and I just keep lazing in my balcony all day along absorbing it as much as possible.

    Then comes Monday, and it is still raining. The view is still the same, but I now have to go to office, and the pain point here is the going part.

    Office is fun, but the commute till there during the rains is just a nightmare. Now till I get the car, and more importantly a parking space at both office and Home, I have to depend on public transport for this nightmarish commute.( The distance is only 3Km, and it still takes forever to get to the office)

    The fact that it takes time is still bearable; the irritating part is waiting for a rick for the ride. And then, further more irritating is the part where I have to convince the driver to take me there. I am paying him, and customer is King is all good in text books, but not with the autowallahs!

    Every morning, it has become a daily to chore to walk down the road, and keep asking every possible auto guy, “ Sangam Cinema chaloge?”. One auto, after another rejects you, and you just keep walking, hoping and waiting for a kind soul who can give you the ride.

    Sheer utterance of the word,” Sangam Cinema” repels them and generates the expression of disdain. Is it a strike today? No! it cannot be happening every day. Is the auto already engaged? No, it is only the driver riding away to his glory, and him slowing down and listening to your destination gives an impression that he is out to do his job.

    So what could it be? A couple of days back, I signaled an auto guy for a ride, and just sat inside the auto without uttering the destination. The auto guy asks,

    “Kahan jaana hai?”

    I am sitting behind in the passenger seat, tell him with full confidence and intimidation, “Sangam Cinema” and I consciously remove the word “chaloge?”

    He stops the auto, and without turning back replies, “nahi jaana!”

    “Kyun? Phir kahan jaana hai? Jahan aapko chalna hai, wahin le chalo!” I tend to fight.

    In vain, after a brief hiatus, I had to get down the auto as he refused to budge, and I was getting late for office.

    So, feeling like a solider returning from a lost battle, I again start my tryst with the next empty auto guy!

    This is a routine that keeps repeating day in day out, twice a day, every day. Morning and evening. And inadvertently, the auto driver always seem to have a different way to go than you destination.

    This makes me think, why?

    He is there to provide a service, and I am here to pay and use that service. Perfect economic sense right? So why this situation?Assuming rationality, the only reason is, the auto Rickshaw driver does not see financial sense to give you a ride, and counts on getting a better ride (to maybe a longer distance with no traffic on the way). He is okay to go into the direction of uncertainty as the upside is too high probably.

    By the way, Auto rickshaw meters in Mumbai run even when the auto is stationery (like being stuck in traffic). Clearly, the tariff for the waiting period is not too high to incentivize the driver to take the traffic route.

    One other key reason is the demand – supply gap during peak hours. In the mornings, and the evenings, there is a splurge of office goers and the number of autos on the road remains constant shifting the equation.

    How can we tackle these issues?

    1. Let the market decide the Auto fares and fix it, rather than regulate the fares. To avoid monopolistic behavior we can have a couple of auto unions in every area who would decide on the prices. Maybe a model like branded providers for cool cabs can be created for autos too.

    This would help avoid cartelization of the unions as each of them would be competing with the other for the passenger.

    Alongside, other forms of public transport like bus, metro, Cool Cabs, etc to give the passenger a wider variety at different price points.

    2. The first option is a long term solution and would take time to develop and implement. Autos are an essential mode of transport presently. A possible temporary fix could be to hike fares in the morning and evening office hours. Similar to the differential night charges, autos should be able to charge a higher price in the morning from 8 – 10AM and evening 5 – 7PM. This would serve two things :

    Passengers who can wait for the peak hours to subside would wait, as they now have an incentive of lower pricing.

    Also, during peak hours the autos would realize the benefit of carrying a passenger more than roaming around empty in hope of getting a better longer distance ride. Autos would have the single minded focus to maximize the number of rides during these peak hours.

    3. Develop the concept of Share Autos. More often than not there is more than one person willing to go to the same destination, and sharing an auto by both could divide the burden on them and on the road traffic too. Even the Auto Drivers get to gain by charging a slight premium.

    An efficient Public transport is the first step towards a truly global city. And if Mumbai aspires to get anywhere close to that status, Public transport is the first step in that direction.

    Hope someone is listening!

    Till then I am back to the road, “Rickshaw, Sangam Cinema Chaloge?”

  • Finally again!

    Yesterday was a Sunday.

    The first quarter of the year closed day before yesterday, and yesterday a new month started. More importantly, it was the first of April. It was April Fool’s day guys!

    Saturday, after a hectic week, was on for a hectic weekend. I had to work! After slogging all day, at about one in the night, I was rading some random articles, when this article popped on my Google Reader – http://mashable.com/2012/03/31/google-maps-8-bit/

    This got me thinking about my blog, and how I have not written since ever now. One post in the last three months? This is like way below my lowest average in the last six years of the blogs existence!

    Thoughts kept coming, and at 2:13 AM, lightning struck and a wonderful idea crossed my mind like a breaking star. I wrote.

    As it is, I slept without finishing the article completely, and I Slept.

    In the morning, the unfinished article’s glare was too much to bear, and I just completed it and posted it. Yes, I was pulling a prank for the first time ever on this blog!

    Did I manage to pull it off completely? Well, partial success I would say. Did everyone fall for it? Not the ones who I meet regularly! But it was all in god humour.

    Sorry guys, the post of me announcing my nuptial vows still have some time. I hope it was all taken in good humour, and in the spirit. Come on, April 1st on a Sunday would come now only after six years! I had to leverage the day!

    So, one more time everybody, NO! I am not yet “tamed”!

    ( That pic in the previous post, with a ring on a hand, was to drive authenticity and flicked from some random web image!)