This blog is about my family’s hunt for a suitable tenant. For those who don’t know, we have a spare 2 room set in our house which has been put up for rent. In the month of January this year, our tenants left the house as they’d bought a new flat two blocks away. Thus began our hunt for new tenants. The requirements of a landlord are quite similar to that of an Indian who has crossed his/her ‘ideal’ age of marriage. All he/she wants is a companion – age no bar, caste and religion no bar, just a normal human required. When I tell someone that I have tenants in my house they look at me as if I’ve a hen who lay golden eggs. They only thing they see is the rent the tenants pay. Yes, to have them pay for a section of our house is beneficial. However, it isn’t a rosy picture. Many a times they are such a pain in the buttocks (see I omitted the word ‘ass’, each one of my articles has a ‘U’ certificate!) that the rent fails to compensate for it.

One fine morning a fine gentleman dropped by my house to enquire about the room. I called my father so he could talk to him. He gave an introduction about himself and asked basic questions about the rent, electricity, water supply etc, which was perfectly normal. However the things which he was about to ask were quite amusing.

“That is all fine uncle, I just wanted to know whether the first rays of sun lighten up the rooms in the morning or not?” he asked innocently.

“Umm, yeah sure. I mean I’ve shown you the rooms and they had perfect ventilation and lighting. You did see it for yourself. Right?” my father initially stumbled but somehow answered him.

“Yes, I saw them but it is 10:23 am right now. Four hours and twelve minutes past the sunrise, so I just want to make sure that at the time of sunrise the sun’s rays lighten up the room.”

“Why do you want it so badly?” my father seemed a bit frustrated.

“Actually uncle my purohit ji suggested that I practiced yoga around sunrise. Also I don’t use alarm clocks, rather I let the first rays of the sun to wake me up. It helps me to get rid of the bad powers residing inside me. You know how it is. I want to get rid of my bad Karma. Beside this, my body will make Vitamin D, it helps my skin look young.” He said cheerfully.

My father had to drink a glass of water to digest all the gyaan that this twenty five year old guy gave. Apparently we didn’t give the room to him but that guy made me believe that sun rays are a lot more than Vitamin D and tanning.

Some people inquire in a manner that’d suggest that they want to break the record for ‘most number of questions asked in a minute.’ I don’t know why they do this. Sometimes the conversation starts on the topic on renting the rooms but ends at something else, in worst cases the conversations are forcefully closed.

My family members will agree on everything except for politics, this is the only topic on which they fight. My grandfather supports the Congress for some reasons while my father supports BJP for other reasons of his own. When someone triggers this topic, my house becomes the battleground for the clash of the titans. I still remember that my grandfather finalized the deal with an uncle who was very nice and sober, he did everything correct to earn the keys to our rooms however while leaving he passed a comment on the governance of Congress. I won’t say that this was his mistake, but one should be careful while passing comments on sensitive topics like election. That one casual comment led to a fierce debate on Congress vs BJP and eventually that uncle gave up the keys. That silly comment had cost us a month’s rent.

Similar things happened when a couple came to see the rooms. They were in the mid-forties and were a bit sophisticated. Two weeks before their arrival I had challenged myself to grow a full-fledged beard (I was hoping to look like Ranbir Kapoor of Yeh Jawaani h Deewani movie *the dreams I see, I tell you!*). The look I sported at that very moment was far from my expectation. Let’s just say that if a girl was given a chance to rate my looks on the scale of one to ten, there was a very high probability that she might have given me a binary digit.

After that couple had asked the basic questions, the lady turned very serious, not the serious kind of serious, but scary serious. She asked my father in a very low yet intense voice. “You are aware of the ill treatment with girls nowadays. Can you assure us that nothing is going to happen with our daughter? You know how boys are these days.” Saying this she turned towards me and gave me a stern look. Trust me it took me a complete week to forget that look! I know I looked like that dreadful person whose photograph is in my voter ID card but that doesn’t mean that I ill-treat girls! She was one hell of a crazy judgmental women.

Not always do these rental conversations end up like this. Once a lady tried to marry-off her sister to me but when she came to know that I have an elder brother who is a thousand times smarter than me, my value decreased substantially. With that, one she lost the chance to live with us; two: her sister is unmarried even now. It is rightly said that one should not be greedy. Had she not rejected me for my brother, who knows that the room might have been hers?

Sometimes people behave as if we are the ones who came to them for room. Once a family came to see the rooms, after inspecting every corner of the rooms the head of the family said, “Your house isn’t well built. Here, take this card and consult the guy mentioned on it. He is my brother-in-law, he is a maestro in the construction business. Also if we live here, you will have to stop eating non-veg food items and mind it, eggs also come under this category!” Can you believe this guy? Who can say that he is in a need of a house? All my father could do at that time was to show them the exit door.

Also, whenever we tell them the rent, everyone behaves like the guy in the Fiat Linea advertisement, “Thoda kam ni ho skta.” Fiat Linea advertisement
I can’t complain much about this habit people have as we Indians take pride in bargaining and negotiating. It is our birth right. Still, sometimes it gets too far. Sometimes people get too interested about our personal lives. Some become over friendly with us in the first meeting itself, they think laughing at every joke or my sarcastic one liners will get them the room. If someone starts giving you a high five on every joke you crack in the first meeting, how would you feel? I don’t know about others but it just feels creepy.

I don’t understand why people behave so weirdly. I do understand that living in someone else’s house is difficult and you have to adjust a lot make it happen but that doesn’t mean that you have to doubt one’s moral character or try to fix the marriage of your sibling with the landlord’s son. That just doesn’t make sense. There is no reason to behave in this way.

Having tenants over is easier said than done. Sometimes people reveal their true skin after they start living, this makes it even worse. However, being with new people is somewhat fun. You learn a lot and there is an abundance of funny incidents to laugh at. I just hope that our tenants don’t read this blog, else we’ll have to start the ‘Tenant Hunt’ again.