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| With my short-term flat-mate Maria from Brazil in my room |
Perhaps, subconsciously I miss them. She used to greet me every morning when I turned on the light at 6 o’clock and fearfully looked around searching: where will she be this time? From where will she creep out? How will she shock me? That was her. Mischievous and completely unpredictable. But then there were some other guys. They used to sing and dance and make wild parties in the bathroom which we had reserved for them (sort of given away). They used to chat in their annoying hollow voices. I remember them as a sort of monotonous radio which you cannot turn off as it turns on whenever it wants..... Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, may I introduce you to my ex-roommates? Our lizard Lizzy and pigeons. Yes, that was our ex-family. Probably, they are still there – in our Lakdikapool flat where we used to live before we moved to Secundarabad, RTC Colony and changed our living place from busy and crowded to peaceful and calm. Did they actually notice that we moved out? I wonder.
Cautiously happy
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| View from our Lakdikapool apartment |
Accommodation has been my major problem since the day I moved to India. On my first day here in Hyderabad I was allocated in one of the 3 AIESEC flats in Lakdikapool and faced the first problems: no electricity, no hot water, sharing a room (no, no, even A BED) with a guy whom you have just met, no internet...and on the top of that – no certainty about when, how and if those problems are going to be fixed. Don’t get me wrong! I am not here to complain. Imagine, this topic would never find me if all the things had been perfect.
Ok, let’s live and see. That became our motive. Or so to say – let’s live day by day. Let’s be happy that today we have light, but let’s not forget that tomorrow it can get down again. Let’s be cautiously happy.....The same to internet, water...In short, let’s appreciate the moment as it’s given to us. Let’s be thankful for what we have.
Finding an apartment: mission impossible!
When I found out that my school is 2 hours ride away from Lakdikapool, I knew I am going to look for another place and move out soon. Luckily, my Mexican friend had the same opinion, so we started searching for an apartment.
Initially, it seemed like a normal thing to do: find an ad, go and see the flat, then agree on the rent fee and move in. That’s what you would do in Europe, but not in India. We forgot many things: even when we find an ad, call up the person who rents out the flat and arrange to see the apartment, it’s not at all that simple. Problems start here:
First, if you are a foreigner, it’s not actually that easy to get to the place where the flat is located. Equipped with many addresses and the hope to visit as many flats as possible on a fine rainy (completely inappropriate for that) day, we got into auto and moved on. Needless to say that the auto drivers would supposedly take you in their vehicle even if they don’t know the address (everyone wants to live and EARN), but pretend they know it perfectly. Surely, that is not the way you can reach the place. Moreover, you cannot reach it on the agreed time. Furthermore, you get lost in the new city you have just arrived at and in our case of a rainy August day – you get wet and feel cold.
Second, even if you reach the apartment (after spending long hours on looking for it and most probably involving random Indians from the street to finally help you find the place), you realize that it’s most probably not in the condition to start living there. Most probably it will be unfurnished or semi-furnished and without kitchen utensils (if you are looking for something that costs below 5000 rupees a month per person). Basically, what they offer are empty rooms which you can rent. But that means investing extra time to find all the necessary utensils and spending a lot more money for it. Perhaps, it would pay off if you plan to stay in Hyderabad for a long time, but a few months stay wouldn’t make sense to waste your efforts knowing that in India things don’t move fast, however you need a place as soon as possible.
Third, roommates. In India, many landlords would not allow girls live together with guys. So, if you are only two girls looking for a flat and want to share a room to reduce costs you would need to find more girls to place in a 3-bedroom or 2-bedoom flat or you need to find a landlord who allows boys and girls stay in a shared apartment.
As a result, we realized that we don’t want to waste our time and energy looking for an apartment. So, we decided to stay at AIESEC flats provided to us even if that brought a lot of problems too.
‘We will remove your beds’
The most adventurous times we experienced were in our Lakdikapool flat. In total AIESEC has/used to have 3 apartments there. As I already mentioned, the funniest part was our „roommates” (Lizzy and pigeons) who always kept surprising us. Apart from that there was time when we used to say „the only organized thing about India is electricity cuts” as electricity used to cut every day exactly at 6 in the morning (time when I had to wake up and face Lizzy in the dark corners where she was hiding). Of course, electricity cuts were sometimes „unorganized” and occurred during day time and evening too. The final step that made us move out of the Lakdikapool flat was different kind of people that kept coming and saying that „you haven’t paid the electricity bill”, „you haven’t paid the internet” (though we never had one in our flat), „you haven’t paid this and that”. So we realized the rent money we pay doesn’t necessarily go to the people who are supposed to get it. Lastly, we got to know that even our furniture that we had in our flat is leased. „We will remove your bed if you don’t pay the rent,” one man came and announced. We were always the „you” ones, the ones who didn’t pay though we had always paid our rent and it was AIESEC who didn’t deliver the money further. And that continued for many months...
Happy up there!
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| Living room in Secundarabad apartment |
When we found out that the debt for our apartment had reached an astronomical number, there was no way than moving out. Luckily, those were AIESECers who had in mind another flat in Secundarabad. Finally, the conditions improved. The flat itself was much better furnished, it had internet connection, I could have my OWN room as it was too small to share it with others, the neighborhood was nicer and more private, and our landlord (the direct contact person) was living just downstairs, so if anything happened we didn’t need to contact AIESECers and wait until they come and solve the problem. The landlord was a very nice lady who cared for us and wanted to help when something went wrong.
That is how I started my life in Secundarabad. It was also more convenient for the school as now it took just 1 hour in a bus to get there. Apart from the fact that we were actually located in Secundarabad which is quite far from Hyderabad, I didn’t have any more complaints. Moreover, I would say I liked Secundarabad more as it somehow looked healthier place to stay. On the main street you could find everything you need, and all the shops were walking distance from my apartment. Of course, things sometimes went wrong there as well, like we had electricity cuts and internet cuts, but we took it in a more moderate way as you could easier find a solution. No, no, I don’t miss Lizzy and pigeons after all.
