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One of the most touted benefits of living in India is that you get cheap labor to get your day to day tasks done. Very true, but be aware, you get what you pay for (most of the times). People call themselves carpenter, wiring specialist, plumber, electricians and gardener but the only competency they have is that they are shameless and street smart. I agree that there are exceptions like this gas stove technician, who came to fix the intensity of the flames of our stove. He had tough time fixing it as per my requirements but he won’t give up. I liked his way of thinking. He said that it’s in his interest to fix it right otherwise the customer will simply give him a call and he will have to come back again to fix it. Wow! We need more people like him – professional and polite. |
| Most other guys I have dealt with show up on your door hours (if not days) late and still expect to get the job and the money they desire. I will give you an example. In our complex, apparently the built-in cable TV wiring is not sufficient for the PVRs so the complex maintenance supervisor recommended a wiring guy. I called up this guy and he told me that he will come and finish the wiring that same day. He shows up at 5 pm in the evening and says that workers are not allowed to work after 6 pm in the complex so he will come the next day. I don’t understand then why he came at 5 pm in the first place? |
| Next afternoon I called him and he said that he is stuck somewhere and he will come on Saturday at 8 am. I called him back on Saturday at 10 am and he says that his drill is broken and he has to get it fixed so he will come on Sunday. On Sunday I called him at 1 pm and he tells me that he is working in another apartment in the same complex and he will come at 3:30 pm and of course he never came. I couldn’t get out of the house on both Saturday and Sunday because I was waiting for this guy. Then I receive a call from him on Monday morning that he can come today. By then, we were extremely frustrated by his unprofessionalism. We told him clearly that there is no need to come. We will live without the TV but he is NOT getting any business from us. |
| I am sure we will have tough time getting that cable laid but we are not ready to promote such unprofessional behavior. Do you think if everyone started doing the same, the situation will improve? |
Labor is cheap (and unprofessional)
It’s a Metro!
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We moved to our new apartment last week, yeaaaaaaaay. For past few days, I have been on my feet the whole day, getting the stuff moved, unpacked and placed at proper place and my feet still hurt ;-(. Yesterday was the first day when I was at home alone and decided to take it easy. In the evening I was lighting a diya, (it’s a daily ritual) and looked out of the window and suddenly it dawned on me that we are living in a metro. I could see a busy road with yellow head lights on one side and red tail lights on the other, a big bright bill board flashing on the side of the road and a zooming past metro on top, all from my dining area window on the 5th floor. It felt like I have seen this view before, perhaps in the movies like ‘Life in Metro’ and ‘Wake Up Sid’. It was exciting to be reliving a scene from the movies 😉 |
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| And here is the sunrise from the same place but looking in the other direction: |
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| BTW, Wake Up Sid reminds me that in the movies, the way they show moving into a dilapidated apartment and then cleaning, painting, decorating it, all with smiley faces and then living happily after everything is done in a few days, in reality it’s nothing like that. When you move in, you have a frown on your face, you are dead tired and decorating comes weeks after you move in because the first few weeks are spent in fixing the basic things like plumbing, electricity, gas etc. |
| Anyways, we are home. The basic things are functioning. The apartment complex is very nice with a lot of greenery, wide open spaces, a grocery store, a vegetable stand, a nice gym and a ping pong table (yeaaaaaaaay again). The maintenance and security staff seems helpful. Radio Mirchi is playing popular hits from 70s like ‘aajkal tere mere pyar ke charche…’, ‘rim jhim ghire saawan…’, ‘aise na mujhe tum dekho…’ as I am writing this blog. We already have a Diwali party invitation in the apartment complex itself – good going, isn’t it? |
Maharani or Naukrani
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As we decided to move to India, 6 months ago, I called up a friend, who moved to India for a few years and then moved back to US again. I wanted to get some tips from her as to what her experience was and what are the things to keep in mind. She summed up her experience in one line. She said that by moving from India to US, “Main maharani se naukrani ban gayi”. She was referring to the household help she had in India, which made her feel like a Maharani. Now back in US, she has to do everything herself so she feels like a Naukrani. Pretty funny, but it was her heart-felt sentiment. |
| The thought of becoming a Maharani was encouraging (not that it swayed our decision in any way). Anyways, we moved to India about 2 months ago. I am still living with the family back home and yet to move to our own apartment. Strange thing is that everybody around me tells me how I need to be careful of the household help as they can’t be trusted and that they and their neighbors have been cheated by them multiple times. I have been also told to not to wear any jewelry when walking alone on the road or going in rickshaw etc. as the state of law and order is not that great here. |
| I have yet to form my own opinions about all these things but that will happen in due course of time. In the mean time, if I go with the advice I am getting, I think I will be a jewelry-less fearful Maharani at best. Oxymoronic, isn’t it? Not sure if I like the sound of it. I would rather be a peaceful Naukrani. What do you think? |
Being Hungry
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We came back to India in our own apartment in Rosewoods Society. We have lots of memories associated with this apartment, some bitter, some sweet. I still remember that when we got the possession of this apartment in January of 1991, there was no electricity connection in the complex because Society administration refused to pay bribe to DESU (Delhi Electric Supply Unit). We couldn’t afford to pay mortgage while living in a rental place, so this inconvenience of not having electricity seemed like a minor issue and we moved into our own apartment. |
| The Society had a generator, which used to run for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening so that some basic chores needing electricity could be finished. We spent that whole winter and the whole summer without the electricity. I guess we were young and we had no other option but to fight. In the end it paid off. DESU couldn’t hold off the electricity for more than 8 months and finally we got the connection. |
| Similar incident happened in Anil’s office in Nehru Place. Their electricity meter burnt off and the DESU technician refused to fix it without the bribe. The amount he was asking was perhaps not that big but it just did not seem right. Also having won a similar battle on the apartment front, it gave Anil the courage to fight again. He went to the neighboring offices and asked for their help. Some of them gladly agreed. They ran a temporary cable from their offices to provide a direct temporary connection to Anil’s office and the office somewhat started working. They simultaneously filed a complaint against that corrupt technician and got the meter fixed in a week or so without paying the bribe. Phew… Community support definitely helps. |
| I still get goose bumps thinking about these events. Now 20 years later, I don’t know how we will behave in similar situations because now we can’t even spend one hour without the AC. I think at that time we were too broke to spend our hard earned money on bribe. When you are a little hungry, you tend to fight for your rights. I hope we have raised our kid to be a little hungry too. |
Finding the digs
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We are trying to find a place to live for more than 6 weeks now and we still don’t have a lease. The main issue is that we want to rent a place with large bedrooms so that we can use it as a work place too. I think one needs that in a joint family so that they can have their own quiet time without being claustrophobic. However there are not that many homes with large bedrooms here in Noida. When we search on the web or talk to the brokers they tell us that the place is x sq ft but actually that’s including the super area (area in front of the lobby, balconies etc.). Exclude 30% of the area, I am told, to get to the carpet area. So a 2500 sq ft area is actually only about 1750 sq ft area. |
| There are independent houses available with larger carpet area but they have their own problems. First and foremost is the safety. Even the people living in these houses say that it’s not that safe. When they go out of town, they deploy a private guard to take care of the property. The second problem is that we don’t want to live on the ground floor because of the mosquitos and dust and first or second floors are not an option because our parents cannot climb the stairs. The third minor issue is that these houses don’t present enough opportunities to make friends easily as opposed to an apartment complex. |
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So we are back to finding a suitable apartment. We found only 2 apartment complexes in Noida, which have good room sizes. We actually signed a lease for a huge pent house, gave the advance and the security deposit. Landlord even asked us to select the colors of the walls as it was getting painted and I was so excited when he allowed us to get a couple of accent walls done. We were so happy to have found a good (though expensive) place to stay only to realize that the water pressure in the showers is less than optimal. We complained to the landlord, who lives in US but by then he was so fed up with the slow pace of maintenance work in the apartment that he just gave up. Before we could blink, he decided to sell the house and promptly cancelled the lease and returned the deposits. Yeah ;-( It took us two weeks to close the deal and we are back to square one. We were already dreaming of dance parties on the top floor with discotheque lights and loud music, oh well ;-(
Later on we came to know that the landlord actually rented it out to someone else for more money after signing the lease with us and depositing our check. Clearly he values money more than his promises. God bless his soul. |
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| Anyways, our container has arrived in Mumbai and will be in Delhi very soon. We are frantically searching for another apartment. Have narrowed down an apartment but for some reasons, closing the deal seems to be taking a long time. Not sure what’s wrong, is it our expectations or people are just slow, need to figure this out. Hopefully it will work out fine. Will let you know when it’s party time 😉 |