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When, in 1958, I was catapulted from our seaside village Muthukur to the city of Vizagh for my University studies, It was a pristine culture jolt for me.
I was living in the downhill slopes of the Beach Road in Maharanipet and used to gingerly try and take exploratory walks to the city center on the other side of the hill. And pass ogling at the Ajanta Hotel (actually a restaurant selling idli dosa vada and such other delicacies that were beyond the dreams of my empty pocket). And reach the plateau housing the vast and majestic King George Hospital, ogling again at the City Cafe opposite. And walk downhill ogling again at the famed Pawan Bakery which was a favored haunt of medicos like Coffee House in the College Street of Calcutta.
By the time I reached the highway leading to the University it was again a plateau housing Santinivas which was a proper Meals Hotel. A few feet away from it there was this huge Petrol Pump (gas station) nestling in the T-junction on its left. Cars used to drive in by its In-Gate on the highway and exit into the perpendicular road by its Out-Gate.
It was all awesome and forbidding.
And the Petrol Pump flaunted 2 bold signposts:
These were a mystery to me. I didn't know what a thoroughfare meant or trespassers or for that matter prosecuted. And was too shy to ask.
Much later, in 1966, when I was a confirmed bachelor at IIT KGP, I was shunted against my will to Qrs. C-23 which was a 3-room affair with a huge compound and an excuse of a barbed wire fence around it. The earlier occupant apparently didn't care to raise a garden and it was a veritable jungle crawling with wildlife such as giant spiders, serpents, and bandicoots. On discreet inquiries I came to know that there was a suicide in that Qrs a while ago and so no one who was in the know was willing to occupy it till someone belled the proverbial cat...which happened to be me.
The next morning I was inspecting my property. And found that the fence on its rear had a gaping hole in its center and there was a white trail leading from it to the main road through my 'garden gate'. And I wanted to keep a watch on it.
That night around 8, I heard a screeching sound and came out and found a lady (bhadramahila) crossing her Qrs at my back though the hole in our fence gingerly and walking along the trail towards my front gate...obviously using my Qrs as a short cut to the Tech Market.
I didn't know what to do but wanted to do it...
And I stopped in front of her and since I knew neither Bengali nor Hindi I told her in my incipient spoken English:
"This is no thoroughfare!"
The lady was as angry as a wet hen and shouted at me in chaste Bengali for a good minute or two and walked back to her Qrs.
Although I couldn't follow a word of what she said, I felt I won the battle.
But it turned out to be a premature celebration. For, in another ten minutes, there was another screech in the fence and this time a balding hunk of a man came through while I was watching from my window and knocked at my door.
And when I opened it, he shouted in halting English whose purport was:
"You can go to hell. We have been using this hole in the fence and the trail for more than 5 years as you can see from its whiteness. You are an upstart in this locality and you better watch out in your behavior with ladies..."
Apparently 5 years is a long enough time at IIT KGP for squatters.
And I at once applied for a room in the Faculty Hostel and quit Qrs C-23 posthaste.
I was told by my Father that in the Krita Yug (aka Satya Yug) there was no concept of property...everyone lived in communes like the Russians did in Stalin's time.
By the Treta Yug of Ramayan, folks became greedy and started owning property and claiming their rights through deeds. But if anyone absconds and abandons his property for 14 years or more, it becomes the property of any usurper. And that was why Kaikeyi asked her stepson, Raam, to go forth into the forests for all of 14 years...not just 5 years like at IIT KGP. So that her own son, Bharat, can claim it as his own by the end of that 14 years.
And then came the Dwapara Yug of the Mahabharat. By then rules got liberalized and the 14 got cut down to 13...that was why Kauravas asked their defeated cousins Pandavas to go forth and live in forests and incognito for just 13 years (12+1). So that by the end of 13 years, the kingdom of Pandavas they usurped lapses into their own hands, by law.
And Father said that by the time Kali Yug arrived in the early 1950s, the 13 years got whittled down to 12 years. And that was why no landlord would allow his tenant to live continuously in his property for more than 12 years...he had to evict them, if only for a day, before giving it back to him for the next 12 years if he turned out to be a good and paying tenant...
By the time I arrived in Hyderabad from KGP, the 12 years dwindled to just 11 months. Here, the tenant became a lessee and the landlord a lessor. And they have to execute a bond for 11 months at the end of which the lease has got to be renewed by both the parties if they turn out to be friendly...but the rent automatically goes up by a whopping 10%.
And if the landlord turns out to be greedy and his property prime, he would evict his tenant at the end of 11 months and lease it out to the old and sick parents of an NRI son who is willing to pay the new rent hiked by as much as 100%...till the next 11 months...
The GHMC (Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation) woke up the other day and discovered that they hadn't increased the Annual Property Tax for all of 10 years and so hiked it by just 100%.
That happened to be the precise time when I got promoted from a lessee to an owner...
Murphy's Law at work on me...
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When, in 1958, I was catapulted from our seaside village Muthukur to the city of Vizagh for my University studies, It was a pristine culture jolt for me.
I was living in the downhill slopes of the Beach Road in Maharanipet and used to gingerly try and take exploratory walks to the city center on the other side of the hill. And pass ogling at the Ajanta Hotel (actually a restaurant selling idli dosa vada and such other delicacies that were beyond the dreams of my empty pocket). And reach the plateau housing the vast and majestic King George Hospital, ogling again at the City Cafe opposite. And walk downhill ogling again at the famed Pawan Bakery which was a favored haunt of medicos like Coffee House in the College Street of Calcutta.
By the time I reached the highway leading to the University it was again a plateau housing Santinivas which was a proper Meals Hotel. A few feet away from it there was this huge Petrol Pump (gas station) nestling in the T-junction on its left. Cars used to drive in by its In-Gate on the highway and exit into the perpendicular road by its Out-Gate.
It was all awesome and forbidding.
And the Petrol Pump flaunted 2 bold signposts:
1. No Thoroughfare
2. Trespassers will be prosecuted.
Much later, in 1966, when I was a confirmed bachelor at IIT KGP, I was shunted against my will to Qrs. C-23 which was a 3-room affair with a huge compound and an excuse of a barbed wire fence around it. The earlier occupant apparently didn't care to raise a garden and it was a veritable jungle crawling with wildlife such as giant spiders, serpents, and bandicoots. On discreet inquiries I came to know that there was a suicide in that Qrs a while ago and so no one who was in the know was willing to occupy it till someone belled the proverbial cat...which happened to be me.
The next morning I was inspecting my property. And found that the fence on its rear had a gaping hole in its center and there was a white trail leading from it to the main road through my 'garden gate'. And I wanted to keep a watch on it.
That night around 8, I heard a screeching sound and came out and found a lady (bhadramahila) crossing her Qrs at my back though the hole in our fence gingerly and walking along the trail towards my front gate...obviously using my Qrs as a short cut to the Tech Market.
I didn't know what to do but wanted to do it...
And I stopped in front of her and since I knew neither Bengali nor Hindi I told her in my incipient spoken English:
"This is no thoroughfare!"
The lady was as angry as a wet hen and shouted at me in chaste Bengali for a good minute or two and walked back to her Qrs.
Although I couldn't follow a word of what she said, I felt I won the battle.
But it turned out to be a premature celebration. For, in another ten minutes, there was another screech in the fence and this time a balding hunk of a man came through while I was watching from my window and knocked at my door.
And when I opened it, he shouted in halting English whose purport was:
"You can go to hell. We have been using this hole in the fence and the trail for more than 5 years as you can see from its whiteness. You are an upstart in this locality and you better watch out in your behavior with ladies..."
Apparently 5 years is a long enough time at IIT KGP for squatters.
And I at once applied for a room in the Faculty Hostel and quit Qrs C-23 posthaste.
I was told by my Father that in the Krita Yug (aka Satya Yug) there was no concept of property...everyone lived in communes like the Russians did in Stalin's time.
By the Treta Yug of Ramayan, folks became greedy and started owning property and claiming their rights through deeds. But if anyone absconds and abandons his property for 14 years or more, it becomes the property of any usurper. And that was why Kaikeyi asked her stepson, Raam, to go forth into the forests for all of 14 years...not just 5 years like at IIT KGP. So that her own son, Bharat, can claim it as his own by the end of that 14 years.
And then came the Dwapara Yug of the Mahabharat. By then rules got liberalized and the 14 got cut down to 13...that was why Kauravas asked their defeated cousins Pandavas to go forth and live in forests and incognito for just 13 years (12+1). So that by the end of 13 years, the kingdom of Pandavas they usurped lapses into their own hands, by law.
And Father said that by the time Kali Yug arrived in the early 1950s, the 13 years got whittled down to 12 years. And that was why no landlord would allow his tenant to live continuously in his property for more than 12 years...he had to evict them, if only for a day, before giving it back to him for the next 12 years if he turned out to be a good and paying tenant...
By the time I arrived in Hyderabad from KGP, the 12 years dwindled to just 11 months. Here, the tenant became a lessee and the landlord a lessor. And they have to execute a bond for 11 months at the end of which the lease has got to be renewed by both the parties if they turn out to be friendly...but the rent automatically goes up by a whopping 10%.
And if the landlord turns out to be greedy and his property prime, he would evict his tenant at the end of 11 months and lease it out to the old and sick parents of an NRI son who is willing to pay the new rent hiked by as much as 100%...till the next 11 months...
The GHMC (Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation) woke up the other day and discovered that they hadn't increased the Annual Property Tax for all of 10 years and so hiked it by just 100%.
That happened to be the precise time when I got promoted from a lessee to an owner...
Murphy's Law at work on me...
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