Madhumita's Blog-Room: Our Bin Tughlaq Days

.A year or two after our wedding. We were invited by one of my ex-colleagues, Richa for dinner. We were living in a 2bhk flat in crowded South Delhi and Richa was living in a villa of a posh society at Faridabad.

It was winter time. The month of February, I think. We went pretty early as we had a plan to have a good appetizer time with nice chat.

Grand entrance, greenery surroundings, built in a piece of land with groves of some fruits and flowers, elegantly crafted landscaping. The villa had a lush green backyard, and the contemporary interiors were enhanced with refined finishes collected from all over the globe. The house featured superior craftsmanship and details such as genuine fieldstone foundations, a wood fireplace, an attached small plunge pool. The location of the society would appeal to anyone seeking to get away from the hustle and bustle, but maintain easy access to all the conveniences of urban living.

Richa’s husband had interest in cooking and so, he kept a huge barbeque maker in the backyard. The warmth coming from the mild fire, gentle touch of fog, soft Kenny G music and the hot barbeque with cold wine – all were trying to mesmerize me totally. Me and my hubby were so impressed with the starter, dinner, ambience that Richa took us to show the society briefly – the swimming pool, squash court, club house, waiting lounge etc. The swimming pool was dry though, because of some repair work.

After having an awesome time, we bid farewell with a promise to meet them soon.

On our way, we were silent, but had a telepathy. I developed a desire to own such a house. And, he understood my silent desire. As this kind of house would cost many crores, it’s just not only out of scope, but not even near to our dream. He tried his ways, tricks to make me understand that wherever we had been these years, was not a bad place.

But, something was cooking in my mind. I found another way to get a bit of this kinda luxury. I thought - why can’t we atleast take a flat in rent in the same society! The island kitchen and the library were haunting my husband too as he loves cooking and reading books. Though he was not in full agreement, couldn’t say me “No” any more! Yaayyyy!!!

And, next day, I called up Richa. She was extremely excited and promised me to get a nice, rented flat for me.

We got one 3bhk with study flat at almost the same rate that we were paying in our current flat in South Delhi, just few thousands more for amenities and maintenance fee.

I was so impatient that immediately we shifted, within a month. In few weeks, we threw a housewarming party. I invited some of our close friends and south Delhi neighbours. They were awestruck by the facilities and large sized flats available at cheap rates. You know what? Two of them took the property agents contact number and shifted within the same month, another two families followed.

Wow! In no time, we had a good gang in few weeks.

In a month or so, the Faridabad summer started. It gradually became unbearable. We installed an AC, but there were long hours of power cut. Generators could not take the load of ACs. Water pumps stopped working. Slowly, I started realizing that there was a huge hair loss. I began my investigation and came to know that we always used to get tanker water and thus, the society service charges were more in summer. The distance from my home to office almost tripled while we shifted, earlier it was 8 km and now it was 22 km in one side. Icing on cake was, there used to be huge traffic jams because of Badarpur border flyover construction.

Come our anniversary. Month of July. Many of my friends wished to visit us and have a party. My husband also planned to cook so many dishes. We did all the shopping the previous day – chicken, mutton, fish, fruits, vegetables, eggs, sweets.

The D Day. We got up late as we had a disturbed sleep because of intermittent power cuts throughout the night. I went to the washroom, started brushing my teeth. The tap poured no water. I went to the kitchen, no water. Thank God, I kept few bottles of drinking water. Cleaned my tooth-pasted teeth to show my wide smile to husband while giving this news.

He almost jumped from the bed, wondered what to do! We decided that in worst case scenario, we would order food from the nearby restaurant. I just tried to open the fridge to see from where to start, oh… inside the fridge, it was warm enough… we understood that because of the fluctuation of power previous night, some technical failure happened.

"Ting. Tong."

Our door bell rang. I knew that Dilruba was on time. I opened the door.

“Happy Anniversary, Didi!” And, she went straight to kitchen to wash her hand.

“What to do didi, no water?” I saw one muffled smile in Dilruba’s face.

“Just broom the house. Rest, I’ll see.”

Dilruba sat on the floor for half an hour after the dry sweep of the rooms. No TV, no radio, no water, so, she left promising me to come when I would call her once the water come in.

There was a fight between our society and the tanker owners regarding some price increase. Time was running...... our stress was increasing….

It was noon time, I opened the freezer, a brown drop of chocolate fell on my hand. Hmmm, yes, all the icy stuff melted…. I opened other sections; some weird smell started coming in….

I kept the brown bread on the island kitchen. Looked at the library which was standing tall.

I heard my hubby talking on phone loudly, “Sharma jee, do you have any flat available for rent, we want to come back…”

Sharma jee is the owner of our previous flat in South Delhi!

My heart and mind felt as if the society is singing >>>>>>>>