Alone? Really? Why?

I don’t really like banks. They scare me. I never know which direction to head to, for the kind of work I need to get done. The women at counter are generally glowering old maids who can’t wait to open their tiffins and complain about their bais. The men at the counter are moustached, old and ask too many questions. The guards and the peons generally stand around leching or scratching their bellies.

When my parents came up with the idea of me buying my own place in the city, I said yes quite joyfully. The EMI would be affordable, it would be great investment, I could stop cribbing about the travel, and yes, it was quite likely that I’d be living in Bombay for a few years at least. With the apartment identified, I already began visualizing the colors of the paint, the position of the sofa, the softness of the cushions and the table lamp next to the bed. I’d even roped in this whimsical young Maharashtrian interior decorator when my dad politely reminded me… “Um, don’t you think you should actually BUY the place before you do all this?”

Hmm… buy the place… of course. I needed a home loan. Aren’t banks always dying to give loans at my doorstep? The frequency of the telemarketers calling me exactly when my boss was asking me for an important statistic, certainly seemed to suggest so. My helpful friend declared that home loans were processed in less than a week, and he had gotten his in three days.

So I began my research and erm, found that EMIs were not all that affordable, especially on my former job’s paycheck. The only resort was to pick a bank that had very affordable rates, but might not offer to come to my doorstep to give me the cheque. Not one of the posh foreign ones with a head office in Fort. My helpful friend said, ”Go with the lowest interest rate. Customer service doesn’t really matter in bank from where you are borrowing money.”

I headed to this low-interest, low-fat, low-taste bank. After a thirty minute wait the Middle-Aged South Indian Bank Manager beckoned us into his cabin.

MASIBM: “You want housing loan?”
Me: “Yes”
MASIBM: “In your name”
Me: “Yes, I am buying the house”
MASIBM: “But why madam?”
Me: “To live there”
MASIBM: “Alone?”
My dad, fearing an expletive filled outburst from my side intervened: “Er, yes. You see, she wants to live closer to her office.”
MASIBM: “But saar, that is not correct no? She is not married. If she gets married tomorrow, who will pay back my loan?”
Me: “What connection does marriage have with a home loan? I have a regular income.”
MASIBM: “Which company you work for madam?”
I mentioned the name of my former employer, which, while being a recognizable name in the media/advertising fraternity, had still not built its equity among the middle-aged South Indian bank manager fraternity.
MASIBM: “What business does it do?”
It was difficult enough explaining media planning to my relatives and even my non-MICA friends; but to explain it to MASIBM was a pulling-out-hair-in-frustration task.
MASIBM, choosing to ignore my 5 minute talk on Media planning 101: “You have to give me the balance sheet of your company, madam.”
Me, through slightly gritted teeth: “Like I just explained, it is a private limited company, we don’t publicize the balance sheet. Many of colleagues have home loans.”
MASIBM: “We are not ICICI or HDFC to give loans just like that. See child, if you worked for ONGC or TCS, I could give you loan just like that, but this way… I don’t know. And what is this MICA?”
I supposed his daughter/daughter-in-law worked at ONGC or TCS.
MASIBM: “Ask your father to be the guarantor and we’ll see. Now it is 5pm I have to go home. ”

So, the process began. In Bombay, in 2007, 16 years after economic reforms, it still continues to be an ordeal for a single woman working for an MNC to buy a house. You need a father/husband backing your claim of financial indepence.
The paperwork that followed, the visits to the advocate, the processing of 25 different documents, the arguments with the Bank Manager’s assistant, the obtaining of a No-Objection-Certificate all took a good three months. Everywhere, there was déjà vu.
X: “You want the NOC/transfer papers/agreement/loan document/registration papers?”
Me: “Yes”
X: “To be made in your name?”
Me: “Yes, I am buying the house”
X: “But why madam?”
Me: “To live there”
X: “You are Mrs or Ms?”
Me: Unmarried
X: “You will live alone?”
Me: “Yes!!”

Replace X with lawyer, lawyer’s assistant, Marathi-speaking-lady at government office, equally Middle-Aged-South-Indian-Secretary of the Housing Society… and you have my story.

My helpful friend had an endless source of amusement from my stories of woe: “I got my loan in three days.”

But all is well that ends well. The loan cheque finally came through, just before I was going to give up the idea of moving into my house, “Alone”.

Now it’s back to the whimsical Maharashtrian interior decorator, the texture of my tiles and the size of my wardrobe. Which is another story altogether.

By popular demand…

When more than four entire people asked me to revive the old blog, I thought it was time.
Not that it hadn’t been attempted in the past year… Word docs would be opened, few lines written and then shut forever. It’s quite a struggle to write this too. The fingers don’t glide over the keyboard as they used too… often resulting in pathetic lines like this one.

It has been an eventful time since the last spurt of blogging. Campus is replaced by an office environment. My cosy room is now a cubicle. The tuk-tuks give way to stuffy trains and cabs and autorickshaws. Late nights remain late nights. But the CGPA is now the points on the appraisal sheet. There are new characters in the plot – the boss, the colleague and the business associate. It’s a mad mad life with pushing, shoving and a Darwinian fight for survival. And most of all, it’s fun.

Welcome to the second phase of blogging on “A Li’l Less conversation” - a story about life in the Big Bad and Utterly lovable city called Bombay.