A Bachelor's Story

It has been 1,327 days since I started working and staying away from my parents. 3 years and 7 months and 19 days of a proper Bachelor’s life. I think I can claim myself to be able to write about Bachelor life.
Let’s start from the very beginning. Got a job in Bangalore if I were to use the expression used by my uncle it is” A Bachelor’s Paradise” (which I will explain later). I stayed in all alone in a single room for about 6 months then moved (Actually courteously the house owner asked me vacate the place) with a friend in another single room (Actually a normal house with 4 rooms for bachelor in the first floor that room rent was 5K per month including the electricity) for about 2 years and finally moved to a 2 BHK with him for 6 months all this in Bangalore. I had a job change ended up coming to Hyderabad. I had 2 bags to carry to this new city after working for 3 whole years and ended up now living in a 2 BHK all alone (My house owner was shocked to find me carrying 2 bags and say that it all I have to relocate). Thought why not share all those rules which we followed as part of the exercise.
For the first 6 months I never had a T.V in my room nor subscribed to a newspaper. These are great cost cutting measure cause we get to read the newspaper in the pantry in office and there is laptop given on the 1st day of work so really never felt a lack of another source of entertainment.
First 20 years of life I would have cursed my mom’s food in good style. Once in Bangalore you never had to curse the food it is already cursed. There is jaggery in Sambar, it is corporation water rasam, half cooked vegetable, partly fried papads, vegetable unheard of (Jerkins, Bitter gourd, Yam etc if you are wondering what these are, they are vegetable which Wipro canteen menu mostly has. ). “Kai endhi Bhavan” popularly known in Tamil for Road side food stalls where the dinner outlets for me for a long time only disadvantage was you should eat the food in dim light else you end up seeing what is getting cooked . My Breakfast and lunch was in the office. Breakfast was 2 idlis and 1 wada and lunch …… It does not really matter all the food tastes the same. Weekends I generally end up getting up late and having a brunch and end up watching a movie or going to some mall with my friends. Saroja chitti stayed with me for a week where she had morning coffee to dinner in Jaya Periamma’s place.
Like I said earlier my house owner pushed me out of the house and I had a different problem in hand. I was travelling to Delhi for a 1 month assignment and I do not have a house to stay. I called my friends and asked them to find for my accommodation before I return. They did this job and found the room for me. I moved with Ramesh (He is still my best friend) once I came back. We were together for 2.5 years and we had a lot of fun together.
The room was a 10 X 10 room with an attached bathroom. There were 2 cots and an almirah. Ramesh had a T.V (this is where the T.V. watching habit again started) and the cable connection for the house was sponsored by our neighbors which we borrowed on non returnable basis without their knowledge. There used to be 2 chairs but I doubt we sat for more than 10 times during my entire stay. The chair used to be filled with clothes. The servant maid cannot take an off in our room alone because we will end of piling clothes. There were days when 5 days -6 days clothes were piled till we realized that the servant did not turn up and try to reduce our usage of clothes which is 2 sets of clothes instead of 3.
Ramesh had this habit of starting the day with the newspaper. So I also started getting accustomed to it. We got 2 newspapers the Times of India (“Can be branded as an out and out Page 3 newspaper) and Economic times (We used to get it during weekdays because it is cheaper during weekdays and the markets are closed during weekends). We would have had a grub in every restaurant in that area. Dinner used to Parathas or roti and subji etc. Food style was changing drastically. Our system was simple I was the accountant for the place to keep track of every expenses we made and share it. I send a monthly statement and based on which either he pays or I pay the amount.
Ramesh had a 2 ltr gas stove and 1 bowl. I think with this there used to be enough cooking happening in the house. Be it soup, maggi, tea or in fact some bhajji was all done with 1 bowl.
Thanks to Ramesh the room housed more people that us. It was the adda for all our friends whether be it a movie or a weekend time pass things started from that room and ended there. Every restaurant in that area was 10 min from our place so we always had friends during the weekend. We have watched movies in the nearby mall and walked back to our room at night 1 also.
Our House owner had the worst time in all this. Most weekends there used to be atleast 1 person in the room. We used to talk till 2-3 in the morning and aunty or uncle used to yell at us to stop us. Once we were so heated up in an argument on PF act at 1:00 in the night that we had uncle yelling from his room that he has been educated on the PF act. I remember of even going out at 1:00 in the night because I started feeling hungry after all the discussion.
My friend got engaged last year, in fact I will never forget the after effects of this. My friend had gone to Guwahati to see the girl and decided to get married to her. The day he came back he ended up talking to her for almost the entire night. The worst part was his mobile could not bear and his battery was completely dried out. He connected his mobile to a charger sat outside the house and continued the talk with his fiancé. In all this I was fast asleep and was in deep snoring mode.
Once he got engaged we decided to move to a 2 BHK in an area nearby. We got the house saying that he would get married in another 4 months time and would bring his wife to this house and I would move to a different place (I actually left the city before he got married). The house was good but we maintained it empty. The only possession were 2 beds a pillow which we bought after moving in. This was also the time I moved to a different department and Ramesh also moved to the same department. In Wipro bus pass cost was about 1300 per person and as both of us were going to the same office we decided to stop taking the office bus and use the local auto. I was 70Rs 1 way to office but the benefit was we never came back at saneful time and ended up taking the cab back home. Every regular spend we made were based on large calculations. We would have even spent time calculating what is the annualized cost of tea which we take in office. In the new house servant maid was turning to be a problem. The demand was 500 bucks for 1 day a week to wash clothes and sweep the floor. We calculated to tell her that she was costlier that our salary which we got if calculated to hourly rate. Things went so bad that in one period I took back clothes to Chennai for washing. Thanks to Ramesh, he got a washing machine and we did washing at home. First time when we started we went to the terrace to dry our clothes but it turned out to be a useless exercise as they ended up getting wet in the rain and again re dried so on and so forth before we brought it back. So we decided to dry clothes in the fan. That also gave us one more advantage we could wash our clothes in the night also. We used to take turns to wash clothes which was the real headache.
Once we moved to this new accommodation I decided that by October I would either find another job or end finding another house. I ended up doing both only that the house is in Hyderabad.
Dad and mom came to Bangalore in the 3 years only when I was leaving the place. Mom had the worst time cause she had to walk to have even a cup of coffee. Looking at this trend they would come to Hyderabad only after I decide to leave Hyderabad for good
It is good to actually recollect the entire experience there and have a record.