Money is Flat

Having a roof of our own is considered a lifetime achievement and has got a great emotional value.

From the time I started working, everybody from my parents to colleagues have started asking when am I going to buy a house or a flat, at least. They do not stop just after giving me a valuable piece of advice, they embark on a journey of never-ending discourse on - how this could be a good investment... how much of tax could I save etc. etc. Whenever, no matter what the space-time is, the whole discourse is repeated again and again and again and again and again. And do not forget that it was a time before anybody'd heard of sub-prime crisis in US and real-estate, from Banana Republic to Pakistan, was a sound investment.

Finally I got so frustrated that I decided to buy one. As with everybody else, I realized that there were only two options for me. One, buy from a reputed builder - nice flat, nice club house, nice landscapes etc. etc. EXCEPT for the price tag or two, buy from a small time builder - quite cheap but then you are not sure what will happen to the flat during the next rain.

In the process of looking for a flat, once I was in an area that was, not in a very distant past, a beautiful lake and a popular hangout for migratory birds from Siberia. And now, it seemed there grows nothing but concrete structures. From then on, more than the price, location and builder's name what weighed on my mind was the stark difference between the glossy advertisement and the ground realities. However, after going through all the projects in and around Bangalore, I realized that the beautiful structure in the glossy brochure either cannot co-exist along with civic problems or it is out of my reach. Real estate in India has become a commodity market where investors pool their black money (.... probably this one is the sole reason, why the market is still booming in India). The current real estate scenario in India does not work for an individual like me who is looking for a flat to live, it works for an investor, who has already got n number of flats.

One more important lesson I learnt - no matter whether you buy a flat from a reputed builder or from a small timer - the flats are too near to one another when you try to sleep (or wish to have some private moments) and too far apart when you try to overhear. As a matter of fact I can hear my neighbour farting as I am writing this piece for the blog.