3 minutes reading time
I earn fourteen thousand rupees a month.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not much. But compared to what a daily wage worker makes out in the villages, it feels like a fortune. It’s a corporate job in Bangalore. Soul-sucking, boring, the kind of job where you watch the clock count down the minutes until you can leave. But it pays the rent. Sort of.
Right now, I’m staying in a company-provided PG with my college mates — Ganda, bells, and the rest. It’s expensive for what it is, and it’s not convenient. The only saving grace is that they provide food three times a day, so I don't have to worry about cooking. But you share a toilet with a dozen other guys, and they only clean it once in a while. It gets old fast.
I couldn't take it anymore, so I went house hunting.
I was walking around BTM Layout, near Gurappanapalya, looking for to-let boards. I met a guy vacating a place, and we started talking in Kannada. I was just trying to learn, so mostly i was speaking in tamil sounding like kannadam.
"How much is the rent?" I asked.
"We pay 7000," he said. "But the owner wants 10000 from the next tenant. They are your people. Maybe you can talk to them." "My people?", I asked. he said, "tamils."
Anyway, Ten thousand. Just like that. Rent jumps because some IT company opened an office nearby and a fresh batch of migrants is willing to pay whatever is asked. The people who lived here for years are just priced out, forced to move further to the margins. What the fuck.
I looked at the house. It was cozy and compact, but then I noticed the nameplate and a few other signs. The owners are Twice-born. They came from the head of Brahma, apparently, and I’m from the feet. They are not my people. Or rather, they don't consider me theirs.
I didn't take my roommates to see any of these places. I was doing this alone, walking around during the day after my night shift. I’d finish work at morning, sleep for a few hours, and then walk the hot streets in the middle of the day.
I found a place eventually.
It’s not a flat. It’s a tiny room built on the terrace of a multi-story building, right next to the overhead water tanks. A bachelor penthouse, if you want to be fancy about it. It’s just one room and a bathroom, purpose-built for bachelors who only need a place to crash.
It’s tiny, it’s hot, but it’s mine. I have my own key. No shared toilets, no company rules.
Just the hum of the city and the water tank leaking onto the concrete outside. It’ll do.