In some of my previous posts, I have eluded to the fact that
finding a flat has been a little bit “tricky” in Mumbai. During our marathon
flat hunt, I was so annoyed by it all that I could not be bothered in any way
to write about it.
Now that we have actually found a home, and a nice one, I
feel like I can share a few of the high- (i.e. low) lights of our flat hunt in
Mumbai, aka Mission Impossible 1-55. 55 because that is what some agent told me
was the number of flats that I ended up looking at. FIFTY SEVEN. That excludes
seeing various places two or three times. You can imagine the fun we had. If
like Ethan Hawke, I had had the chance to not accept the mission, I would have.
But then we all knew he didn’t really have a choice not to accept it and
neither did we.
So here are a few sequences from our very own Mission
Impossible, set in Bandra West, Mumbai
Scene 1: “Furnished or unfurnished – that is the question”
As we were moving from our very tiny but very cosy flat in
London where the only thing we really owned were three Ikea shelves, we quite
wanted a furnished place. Unfortunately, I was told during the briefing that
Mumbai was one of the very few occasions where my company did not support
furnished flat hunts under any circumstances. Great start, I did not really
fancy spending a couple of grand furnishing a flat the other side of the world.
Turns out when we came to Mumbai, that rule was basically completely flexible
(i.e. ignored) which many rules are in India. We were even shown flats that had
cutlery, coasters and the cousin’s sister’s socks in the draws. So we saw the
whole range – from flat with bare brick walls and hold where windows should
have been to fully furnished.
Scene 2: “Everything is possible”
This is the quote every agent would tell you when I looked
at an apartment and said I did not like the kitchen, the sofa, the wallpaper or
the rock solid mattress that Indian beds seem to come with. The agent would
promise any change in the flat within seconds. Sound proofing an apartment,
completely renovating the bathroom – nothing seemed to be a problem. I was
quite surprised they didn’t offer to change the view of an apartment “Don’t
worry Ma’am, we will move that building right outside your bedroom somewhere
else”. Again, reality of somewhat different. All the apartments we started
negotiating on, we would have liked some furniture removed and even though they
were all places where we were told “it would be no problem at all”, no landlord
actually was keen to change anything and very few agreed to any changes at all.
One of the reasons our living room in our flat now looks like my grandma’s flat
and will so for the foreseeable future.
Scene 3: “You will talk to agent A, who will speak to B who
knows C who will get in touch with the target”
Too many people involved! That probably sums up the main
issue with our flat hunt. We had a relocation agent who would put us in touch
with real estate agents (who we are not allowed to talk to directly) who
operate in a mafia of real estate agents by suburb. So your agent will arrange
viewing through other agents who then know the lawyer of the actual landlord.
Who probably is the cousin of the first agent. We must have lost weeks within
this ridiculous network and knowing who actually was the decision maker was
once again impossible. When trying to actually close on a property, it became
even more convoluted with the company’s legal, relocation and facilities team
starting to get involved as well. The time we finally met the landlord (which
was more or less when the deal was closed), you could feel the relief on both
sides to actually be talking to the right person.
Scene 4: “Same same but different”
One of the flats we really liked was on a small quiet street
(something you really appreciate in Mumbai), on the 5th floor with
quite a nice view, generally in good nick, modern bathrooms and some decent
furniture we were happy to keep. We started negotiating, more or less were
willing to pay the price asked, so all was good. We were told discussions with
the landlord were progressing well up to the point where we got sent a summary
of the current inventory. That inventory sounded very different to what we had
seem. Making that point various times, it turned out it wasn’t the flat we had
actually seen but the one in the same building on the 2nd floor
(which we had never properly seen as all rooms were locked). It’s the same
floorplan as the 5th floor one but obviously with completely
different finishing and furniture – in a state we were not interested in. Our
various agents could not understand AT ALL why we would not consider this one.
It good old South East Asia tourist scam manner – same same but different.
Scene 5: Trust no one but yourself
This sounds harsh but is unfortunately true. We had
situations where we had agreed a deal with the landlord, shaken hands and
agreed that both sides would stop looking only to find out a few weeks later
they had pulled out of the deal again. Until you have it in writing, nothing is
certain. As part of the complicated communication loops we had to jump through,
it was very difficult to find out where things had gone wrong. You would speak
to three different people and get three different stories, each of them making
sure to point out that it was ABSOLUTELY not their fault it all went wrong
again. Blame gets passed from A to B very easily and everyone’s main concern
seemed to be to keep face rather than actually getting anything done. I want to
clear thought that I do not see this as a reflection of Indian society in
general but just was very much the feeling we got in that’s specific house
hunting “situation”.
Scene 6: May God be with you
Surprisingly, parts of Mumbai have very large Christian
communities. This includes Bandra. For one flat we liked, I was asked whether I
had a baptism certificate. Not that I have ever actually seen it but I was
pretty sure that somewhere in parent’s cupboards back in Germany there would be
baptism certificate. So when the society (which is basically what the people
who live in the building and organize all the admin) asked for, I just got my
Mum to whatsapp a picture of the certificate over. Only to be told that they
needed the original. After some discussion, they agreed to accept a certified
copy which my Mum got couriered to India. At that point I thought I would just
mention that I am Protestant rather than Roman Catholic (as I had heard
somewhere that some societies are strictly Roman Catholic). Well, guess what.
Protestant is not acceptable and despite a fully certified baptism certificate
being on its way from Germany, there was no way we were going to move into this
flat. Apparently all the parties involved (see scene 3) seemed to think
Baptised = Roman Catholic – when I tried the line “does it really make that big
of a difference” I was told “But you and the Catholics hate each other”. That
left even me a bit speechless…
Scene 7: Everything is going to be fine in the end. If it’s
not fine it’s not the end
This famous Oscar Wilde quote has been reused in “The
Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and luckily, it also held true for our apartment
search. Finally, we are in a really nice flat and even if the furniture looks
like my grandmas, the AC units make the sound of helicopters and the parrots
that I found so cute when we first saw the flat have turned into loud monsters
at 5am in the morning, I love the flat and it’s just such a nice feeling to
have a place to call home after nearly 6 months. Putting up our pictures,
buying bits and pieces and exploring the neighbourhood has been lots of fun and
even though there were moments where I thought we would never get there, it has
been worth it.
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