Happily Homeless

We woke up on the 27th morning unable to believe that 6 weeks had passed and that the family section of our adventure was over. This was a depressing fact. From this evening we would also be homeless unless we found a flat quick smart, so this drove us out of our depression and straight onto our mission of finding a new home. Of course we had to eat first, so Sandeep took us to a wonderful restaurant in the Taj Mahal Hotel (not the fancy one in Mumbai), where we had the most delicious Button Idlis and a great cup of chai- all we could think was that Guy and Capsar would have loved it!

Sandeep had already made a short list of several flats in the nearby area, and as we went to see them they all got struck off the list one by one for various reasons such as requires a 1 year lease, the grittiest bathrooms ever seen and already taken 3 days ago. So by the afternoon we were feeling quite forlorn, when we came across a reasonable priced 2 bedroom flat which was really clean and airy when we saw it. We settled on it, went to see the owner, and he was most suspicious of this strange group comprising a strapping young unmarried man, a middle aged married woman and her 10 year old daughter looking far too grown up for 10 (in his eyes). He demanded to talk to Sandeep’s father, and could not understand why 2 foreigners could possible want to stay here. When he found out we were only leasing for 3 months the whole deal went out the window. We took leave, and afterwards felt quite relieved that this awful man was not going to be our landlord.

Ironically Sandeep vacated a flat he had in another part of town at the beginning of January, but this flat did have serious plumbing problems. We still had an option of the one bedroom flat near the school office, but there would be nowhere to park the car and it would surely get bumped and dented in the narrow lanes, which we felt would not be an option. So the last option, as we had to be out of there that evening would be to go to Harshiths family’s house temporarily. They had insisted upon us coming there should we not find anything, and furthermore Sandeep’s father had found out that a person in their area was vacating a good flat in one day’s time. The other pressing fact was that Freya had a major performance coming up at a public programme in Hyderabads Public gardens on the evening of the 28th, and thus would need some practise, and also a place to prepare for it. So it all pointed to us gathering our stuff and taking the trip 10km out of town to take refuge at Narasimha’s house.

Freya was freaking out at the thought of having to be force fed rice again, so I suggested I make pasta for everyone. This excited her and Sandeep too, who just loves pasta. Sandeep managed to fit all our accumulated stuff & kitchen equipment in his car in two trips, which was wonderful given the distance and the traffic. We arrived there and were warmly welcomed, and I prepared Pasta for everyone. Sandeep was so happy eating this, and so were we after our exhausting day out. Narasimha’s wife Swapna though could not eat it without a huge serve of hot chutney!