After a month long siesta under the sun at KKD, a week long boot camp in the rains at Mumbai/Kolad, I returned to Gurgaon to restart Corporate Life v2.0. All I had to do was to find a house and settle down in the city of the 1000 malls. And what a gloriously uncongested city too. Unitech World, Vatika City, DLF Towers, Princeton Estate, Ardee City, I felt spoilt for choice. Wouldn't you? I visualized a house on the 8th floor of a skyscraper, plush interior woodwork, leather sofa, Jaquar bathtub, flatscreen TV rigged to a Playstation, central AC, armchair, vodka and caviar on a balcony overlooking the common swimming pool with interruption only by the intercom which security uses to announce the arrival of friends. Of course, all within walk-able distance from a metro station. After all, I needed to get to work everyday didn't I? Anyway, an exhaustive search on magicbricks.com, 99acres.com, makaan.com, yielded close to 2000 agent contacts. Pooh and bah. Now I'd play these poor chaps against each other and get the cheapest rent, I thought. But you're right. This is how every good story begins.
For a well networked student in a centrally located MDI campus, a wide selection of bikes makes Gurgaon all of 40 minutes in radius. But CorpLife v2.0 revealed the 5 km gaps between buildings and suddenly disappearing public transport that extended the Gurgaon radius to well over 2 hours. While I belittled the congested closed spaces in Mumbai, the uncongested open spaces of Gurgaon belittled me. Anyway, the very first agent took me to an apartment in Maple Heights and it wasn't bad. But it was nowhere near the vodka-caviar dream. So I put him on hold.
The next day at office, I spent the whole afternoon calling various Gargs and Sharmas. The fog of vagueness mentioned earlier lifted and from within, very reluctantly, appeared my "bachelors ke liye fully furnished 2BHK with 100% power backup aur rent INR20-25000 ke range mein". But there were no takers! Or givers rather. The Gargs said I should look at the INR30000 range. The Sharmas felt I needed more space and should look for a 3BHK. The Kumars declared that if I found a wife by Friday, they'd find me a house by Sunday. And the Agrawals exclusively dealt with people for whom power backup was simply snobbishness.
I quickly realized that in Gurgaon, all roads lead to Maple Heights. But I have not given up. This is not how the story ends. The search continues....
For a well networked student in a centrally located MDI campus, a wide selection of bikes makes Gurgaon all of 40 minutes in radius. But CorpLife v2.0 revealed the 5 km gaps between buildings and suddenly disappearing public transport that extended the Gurgaon radius to well over 2 hours. While I belittled the congested closed spaces in Mumbai, the uncongested open spaces of Gurgaon belittled me. Anyway, the very first agent took me to an apartment in Maple Heights and it wasn't bad. But it was nowhere near the vodka-caviar dream. So I put him on hold.
The next day at office, I spent the whole afternoon calling various Gargs and Sharmas. The fog of vagueness mentioned earlier lifted and from within, very reluctantly, appeared my "bachelors ke liye fully furnished 2BHK with 100% power backup aur rent INR20-25000 ke range mein". But there were no takers! Or givers rather. The Gargs said I should look at the INR30000 range. The Sharmas felt I needed more space and should look for a 3BHK. The Kumars declared that if I found a wife by Friday, they'd find me a house by Sunday. And the Agrawals exclusively dealt with people for whom power backup was simply snobbishness.
I quickly realized that in Gurgaon, all roads lead to Maple Heights. But I have not given up. This is not how the story ends. The search continues....
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