Magic tricks: House hunting hacks

Like most things statutory the question too didn’t accomplish much.

Aap kya karte ho? What do you do? Asked the agent whom I found on a real estate portal.

Even if you say you undertake contract killings, the answer will still be acha. Good.

More than eye on your money, this is also the unshakeable, ebullient, die-hard ‘ho jayega’ spirit of Delhi. Can be done. Nothing is impossible because impossible is everything. There is a whole economy that hinges on it – on securing the unobtainable. Issues are created, obstacles placed, just so ho jayega can be set to motion. This is a parallel economy, super efficient, manoeuvring it’s way around the meandering main, supplementing it, reaffirming our faith in it, leaving many richer off by it. This is the one that gets things done. In real time, in good time. Transparency International might call us among the ‘worst offenders in the region’ when it comes to corruption but then what do Berliners know about the finer nuances of babudom!

My reply that I was a freelancer was met with a shaking face. This surprised me as even my staunchly conservative folks had by now reconciled themselves to the various handicaps of me being a freelancer – erratic payments, working Sundays, screaming ‘GST’ while sleeping and a generally hungry look. The landlord didn’t like freelancers, the agent told me. What is wrong with a freelancer? I had to breathe hard and count in reverse to stop myself from pushing him into dog shit on the pavement. Was it about money? A true Keralite might owe you his life but never money. Why we go to Dubai in hordes. What’s wrong with being a freelancer? I managed to stutter out.

It had been a year since I left Dwarka where I stayed for over a decade. The sub city was comfortable living – fully-furnished apartment, maid, family and cars. I had first moved into a studio apartment at the tony Kailash Colony where Arun Jaitley was rumoured to be a neighbour. The property was courtesy of an aggregator of unused urban living spaces and the homeless with delusions of money in the pocket. Instead of taking even a cursory glance at the legal works, they just lap up every cubbyhole and cave that comes their way: I had to vacate mine at a few days’ notice as the municipality slapped them with shutdown notice over some tax hassle. What made me kick myself was not getting thrown out but that I used to pay their nut-gutting rents before the fifth of every month which was part of the agreement. I pointed this out to the agent. Sir, he replied with utmost sincerity, I know they are a bunch of behen-choots. Sister-fuckers.

But he continued shaking his head. 

Bouncers and freelancers  

Rajesh and I stood around the ubiquitous bollards earmarking parking spaces outside a sprawling bungalow in Hauz Khas. Cross parking vehicles will be punctured or set on fire, warning signs read. These signs were sponsored by a dental clinic and had smiley woman photos on them. Looking at a property now I can tell how many offsprings the builder has – from the partition walls that jut out at incongruous angles from windows and toilet vents. Here I spotted three sets sharply set into the façade like the blades in a magician’s body box. Three brothers; the room I was to lease was the last of the lot from the property shared to the youngest. That is, till my freelancer status came in the way.

Freelancers and bouncers stayed home most part of the day, Rajesh said. So? I hissed through clenched teeth. Every unit of electricity, litre of water, went through separate counters. During the day, Rajesh went on, the owner sat at his shop in Aurobindo Market and his wife was alone at home. This lady, he explained with a wicked glint, had a thing going with the last tenant who was a bouncer at a nightclub in Hauz Khas village. Since they managed to evict the bouncing Hulk with great complications it was decided to rent the property out only to the properly jobbed. Preferably married. It was nothing personal, he laughed.

But there was a barsaati nearby, if I were interested. Barsaatis were igloo-type apartments struck up into the middle of a terrace that smacked of desperation and money-mindedness. Dotting your backyard were fume-lets from toilets beneath. 

Vasudhaiva kutumbakam. The world is one family.

The slot for home-showing I had allotted Rajesh was from two in the afternoon till four. We had inspected five possibilities in the Hauz Khas area. Four to six in the evening was for Anil who would take me around Safdarjung next door. With all the tact I could muster, I impressed upon Rajesh that my destiny was most likely linked to the houses he had thrown open for me. As a further stroke of great eclat, I told him about a work meeting I had to be present for within an hour. Just as I was bidding him good bye, an elderly gent, well-dressed and uncharacteristically laconic for the profession arrived on his motorcycle and introduced himself as Anil.

He, it turned out, was my four o’ clock agent.

Oh, it’s nothing, Anil told me. Brush away the blush, the world of real estate agents was quite incestuous. Most of the numbers listed as contacts for south Delhi properties went to about half a dozen of them who shared leads, insights and client coordinates. 

Barsaatis and builder floors

Anil had made a killer deal many years ago and was happily living off the proceeds. But since brokering was the only job he knew, he was still at it whenever he felt like it. He took me to Green Park, near Safdarjung, more toff. This was the barsaati Rajesh told me about. The matronly landowner was sprightly despite a stiff knee. What overjoyed me was she was utterly impressed by my job and my freelancer status seemed to turn her on immensely. She had a builder floor which might interest me, she said, taking over the mantle from Anil. It has a separate entrance, she announced as if it were an USP. Builder floors are so tucked away and reaching them is usually through spiraling wrought iron stairways: you can take them if your only possession is a toaster. I declined. Then she took me on a tour of the barsaati, the concrete hutment atop her terrace – a moat-like path wound around the bedroom and kitchen probably mandated by the original design. The walls were matchy-matchy, the décor cheeseball. There is gas connection, she pointed out gaily. I could cook to my heart’s content.

Giving gas connections was more safeguard than altruism. When the rental market peaked some years ago, tenants conned their gullible, old landlords into permitting them to apply for LPG gas connections using the rental agreement. Once they had the gas connection in their name, they would use this for getting new voter ID, opening bank accounts and finally securing large loans. The tenant disappears soon and the landlord begins receiving mortgage notices on the overleveraged property. I know one whose tenant vamoosed with a Rs 1.10 crore loan leaving behind a wardrobe full of fine wool blazers. All stitched at Raymonds, he beamed. Could I help him set up an online blazer rental shop?

Ho jayega works in many ways.