Home vs. PG

Although I spent most of my life in Chennai, I’d taken a special liking to Bangalore ever since I moved here in December 2012. At that time, I lived in Indira Nagar near the Indira Nagar club, truly one of the most ‘happening’ places in the city. Branded showrooms, bars, pubs-- were all a stone’s throw away on 100-feet road and my two years in this neighbourhood were bliss.

I moved back to Chennai in November 2014 and after staying there for 7 months, moved to Bangalore again. My second innings in Bangalore… and so far it’s been great. I live in Marathalli and work in Whitefield. I take a Volvo bus to work every day. I come back by the same bus. Luckily, it stops right outside home and work.

The weather here has been great. This time I’m staying in a PG accommodation. At first, it took me a while to get used to it, but now I’m quite okay with sharing my room with some other girl. We haven’t become the best of friends or anything ‘coz she speaks mainly in Bengali and can barely string two sentences in English together, but we have learned to co-exist.

The only ground rule I’d set was that between 8pm and 10 pm every weekday, I would need to watch my programs on Zee Café: The Big Bang Theory and Desperate Housewives. She had no objections and I was thrilled that I didn’t have to miss Season 8 of Desperate Housewives. Now the season finale is over and that’s the end of Desperate Housewives. So I require the TV only between 8 and 9 pm on weekdays. Anyway, she channel surfs a lot and usually ends up finding something entertaining to watch, so I have no complaints.

When I lived in Indira Nagar, I lived alone in a studio apartment. Although it was small, the work involved in running it was equal to running a full-fledged household for four in a big house. I had to manage a cook and a maid, buy vegetables for the cook, pay the cable bill, wifi bill, electricity and water bills along with the rent. Life became all about bills and I started resenting it. In Chennai, my dad usually took care of everything, so things used to run smoothly, almost like magic. Here, I had to trudge from place to place to get things done and it got tiresome.

That’s one thing about the PG. They take care of catering food – breakfast and dinner. They take care of wifi bills. I can get my ironing done through the caretaker who gives it to the ironing man. I can wash my own clothes using their washing machine. (Although, I must admit – the clothes are piling up). In short, most of the bothersome tasks are taken care of. And I moved to Bangalore with just three suitcases of clothes and a handbag. Didn’t have to bring a truck load of goods here to set up home.

I still might move into a house later on, but for now this suits me just fine.