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The year before we shifted to our 'own' present apartment here, we were renting in a gated community which I dubbed as an NRI Township.
On the other hand, the one we are living in now is another gated community in its birth-pangs that I call an EMI Township.
The two are like cakes and ale...both are good but in different ways.
The NRI thing had its 3 BHK apartments costing Rs 70 lakhs onwards (all told)...only the filthy rich Indians and NRIs from the US and the Middle East could afford to buy them.
Our EMI township's apartments are similar...and in some respects like ventilation better...but cost half as much.
The apartments in the NRI thing were mostly bought up by young sons and daughters settled in the US. They find that money doesn't grow in the US and so invest in the flourishing real estate market of Hyderabad where the rents they get shoot up 10% every 11 months and, along with increasing rents, their resale value doubles every decade or less.
Great deals!
But who will look after their apartments, lease them out, collect rents and see that they are not gobbled up by tenants and roving sharks?
The answer: their aging parents.
So, they buy 2 back-to-back apartments, rent out one of them and ask their parents to stay in the other and act as...ahem...unpaid watchmen.
Neat!
But the old folks who are yanked out of their seaside villages on the famed Coromandel Coast grumble but can't defy. For, their kids argue:
"You have 24-hour water here. And 24-hour Full Power Backup (including ACs and Geysers). You have the state-of-the-art medical facilities. And 24-hour internet. And you can skype us anytime you like and talk to your kids and grandkids for hours. So, what are you whining about?"
And one old man caught me and hammered me saying that I am the luckiest person in the whole world living with my wife (sadly no more), son, D-i-L and Ishani. And his counter-question to his son's ranting was:
"What about my seashore? Can I get it in Hyderabad?"
His old orthodox wife one day rang the bell and breezed into our apartment, all excited and fearful, and told me:
"Do you know, Bhaisaab? These people here are collecting shit water and supplying it back to us! I am going to lead a deputation, won't you join me?"
I told her not to worry. True, they have an ultra-modern sewage treatment plant to recycle our shit water. But it is used exclusively for watering the lawns and gardens and for filling up the dedicated overhead tanks that supply water to the flush tanks and then re-re-re-recycled ad-infinitum.
But, the water they give us in the REST of the taps is as pure as Ganges Water (called Manjeera Water).
She wasn't convinced.
My problem with the NRI township where we lived for 11 months was that I got to see only old and doddering folks...I looked the youngest!
When we shifted to our own EMI Township, my heart leapt up like Wordsworth's when he saw all those platoons of daffodils. I am the oldest citizen here. The rest are all in their late 20s and early 30s. The youthful ladies and gents call me: Uncle or Chachu, and the kids: Thatha (granpa). And it is a pleasure in the evenings to watch young software husbands walking by the side of their younger wives who occasionally are 'with baby' (inside) or 'with a baby' (in the pram) or both.
And they offer me lifts all the time on their precarious 2-wheelers.
We don't have Company Power Backup. But we have installed an Inverter. This doesn't run ACs and Geysers but I am allergic to ACs and always take cold showers (even in the mild winter here). We don't have round-the-clock water supply, but we bought several storage drums. We have 24-hour flush-tank water supply...for we do have a Sewage Treatment plant that takes care of it.
So, it is Heaven!
Yesterday, however, the flush tank in my bathroom was as empty as my wallet in the last week of the month. So, I alerted my son and asked him to call up Maintenance and ask them what went wrong.
And he got the cool reply:
"Sir, our regular plumber went on leave giving us a stop-gap stepney. This new chap sort of goofed up and for the last couple of days the water to the two dedicated tanks (drinking and flush) got interchanged...we are busy rectifying it...please bear with us..."
...Posted by Ishani
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The year before we shifted to our 'own' present apartment here, we were renting in a gated community which I dubbed as an NRI Township.
On the other hand, the one we are living in now is another gated community in its birth-pangs that I call an EMI Township.
The two are like cakes and ale...both are good but in different ways.
The NRI thing had its 3 BHK apartments costing Rs 70 lakhs onwards (all told)...only the filthy rich Indians and NRIs from the US and the Middle East could afford to buy them.
Our EMI township's apartments are similar...and in some respects like ventilation better...but cost half as much.
The apartments in the NRI thing were mostly bought up by young sons and daughters settled in the US. They find that money doesn't grow in the US and so invest in the flourishing real estate market of Hyderabad where the rents they get shoot up 10% every 11 months and, along with increasing rents, their resale value doubles every decade or less.
Great deals!
But who will look after their apartments, lease them out, collect rents and see that they are not gobbled up by tenants and roving sharks?
The answer: their aging parents.
So, they buy 2 back-to-back apartments, rent out one of them and ask their parents to stay in the other and act as...ahem...unpaid watchmen.
Neat!
But the old folks who are yanked out of their seaside villages on the famed Coromandel Coast grumble but can't defy. For, their kids argue:
"You have 24-hour water here. And 24-hour Full Power Backup (including ACs and Geysers). You have the state-of-the-art medical facilities. And 24-hour internet. And you can skype us anytime you like and talk to your kids and grandkids for hours. So, what are you whining about?"
And one old man caught me and hammered me saying that I am the luckiest person in the whole world living with my wife (sadly no more), son, D-i-L and Ishani. And his counter-question to his son's ranting was:
"What about my seashore? Can I get it in Hyderabad?"
His old orthodox wife one day rang the bell and breezed into our apartment, all excited and fearful, and told me:
"Do you know, Bhaisaab? These people here are collecting shit water and supplying it back to us! I am going to lead a deputation, won't you join me?"
I told her not to worry. True, they have an ultra-modern sewage treatment plant to recycle our shit water. But it is used exclusively for watering the lawns and gardens and for filling up the dedicated overhead tanks that supply water to the flush tanks and then re-re-re-recycled ad-infinitum.
But, the water they give us in the REST of the taps is as pure as Ganges Water (called Manjeera Water).
She wasn't convinced.
My problem with the NRI township where we lived for 11 months was that I got to see only old and doddering folks...I looked the youngest!
When we shifted to our own EMI Township, my heart leapt up like Wordsworth's when he saw all those platoons of daffodils. I am the oldest citizen here. The rest are all in their late 20s and early 30s. The youthful ladies and gents call me: Uncle or Chachu, and the kids: Thatha (granpa). And it is a pleasure in the evenings to watch young software husbands walking by the side of their younger wives who occasionally are 'with baby' (inside) or 'with a baby' (in the pram) or both.
And they offer me lifts all the time on their precarious 2-wheelers.
We don't have Company Power Backup. But we have installed an Inverter. This doesn't run ACs and Geysers but I am allergic to ACs and always take cold showers (even in the mild winter here). We don't have round-the-clock water supply, but we bought several storage drums. We have 24-hour flush-tank water supply...for we do have a Sewage Treatment plant that takes care of it.
So, it is Heaven!
Yesterday, however, the flush tank in my bathroom was as empty as my wallet in the last week of the month. So, I alerted my son and asked him to call up Maintenance and ask them what went wrong.
And he got the cool reply:
"Sir, our regular plumber went on leave giving us a stop-gap stepney. This new chap sort of goofed up and for the last couple of days the water to the two dedicated tanks (drinking and flush) got interchanged...we are busy rectifying it...please bear with us..."
...Posted by Ishani
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