Sunday, November 11, 2007

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.

8 Comments:

Blogger A said...

There was a front page article in TOI here on how single women find it impossible to rent apartments in Ahmedabad, one of the biggest grouses against them being that they leav taps open. Untrue and a ridiculous generalisation, apart from being highly stupid.

A note on the first part of your post: The scratching, when it comes to guards and peons, ain't restricted only to bellies!!

November 11, 2007 11:50 PM  
Blogger DeepBlueSea said...

Awww... the TOI people and the Gujju landlords should read your Piper post.

And I didn't want to use the word cr***h in my first post this year. :P

November 11, 2007 11:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

its oookkay, my 3 days = your 3 months ...

design of false ceiling, position of kitchen sink, height of book shelf, pattern of fancy granite ....just to mention the few things you forgot to mention

November 12, 2007 6:04 AM  
Blogger DSK said...

Sideee...

I remember K3 was the first room to actually have the interiors done up... matching cushions, curtains, and diwaans too. The rest of us simply copied the idea.

Good luck!

November 12, 2007 9:02 AM  
Blogger DeepBlueSea said...

my helpful friend: Yes, thanks for being so helpful :P
The story of the false ceiling and the position of the fan and the smirking shall be a part of some other blog. Maybe a secret one that sidey people write.

DSK: I remember K5's lovely view and bright curtains. And how K1 transformed into the lovely Champa 8. And the lovely orange wall in Champa 11. We had gone to this interiors store at Andheri, where we saw lots of nice lamps and all. Funnily enough the things there could be classified as "Our kind of stuff" and "Jo kind of stuff" :)

November 13, 2007 2:35 AM  
Blogger daviejones said...

Hmphhh!!! Jo is highly offended. Begs to remind you that most of the stuff we saw, we agreed with right down from Anjy's floor lamp, the mauve furnishings we had a fetish for, the rusts and oranges that were part of at least 3 amongst us down to even that blue 1+1 free top we got at Lokhandwala...
so there! It is only recently that you guys have started saying this...hmphhhh again!

Anyway, coming down to the comment, somehow it isnt your old style of blogging

Jo

November 15, 2007 3:25 AM  
Blogger daviejones said...

oh and i forgot, i didnt see the ad, sidey guys you put it in the interval, had gone to get popcorn but my cousin saw it

Jo

November 15, 2007 3:28 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I can relate to this post. I was stuck in a similar situation about an year ago. I wanted to buy a laptop, and the best way to do so was to get it through an Education Loan. The in-campus SBI offered an interest rate of 8.5% (Being an IITian has its advantages, methought, being utterly naive).

Thus began the (seemingly) endless visits to SBI and dealing with the extremely arrogant officer and his poor assistant (How I pity her!). He asked for every possible document that he could associate with me, from my grade sheets to my father's bank statement to the telephone and water bills of my grandmother's home (Yes, he asked those too). I was getting angry and frustrated. It seemed as if he was inventing documents to be brought, with every one of my visits.

The crux came four months later, when he ordered (not requested) me to bring a file for keeping his copies of my documents, with a pile of the bank's own files in front of him. I yelled at him and explained his own job to him: a bank exists for it's customers, not vice-versa.

I got my loan within a week.

January 26, 2008 5:22 AM  

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