AHMEDABAD DIARIES: CHAPTER V NEW HOUSE BUT THE SAME OLD FEELINGS

“Life never promised to be a walk in the park and it will never be. There will be stones, thornes and everything thrown at you along the way. Times will test you and bring you to a point of breaking. It never promised it's going to be an easy ride. Life is everything, the choice is yours on how you wanna see it and how you wanna walk through this.”

After about a month of Hotel stay, I have finally found a house or sort of a house. I am supposed to stay with three guys. All of them working in different banks. Though it's not the most exciting thing, it however made most sense out of all the possible options I had.

Let me brief you with all the options I had. First, I can stay in the hotel for the entire three months time, though it's not gonna cost me huge bucks it's expensive however. Second, I can rent a room on my own. The glitch however is that I am here for just three months and no one would keep me as a tenant for that short time. Third, I can stay in a guest house, which is cheaper than a hotel. The problem however is that the guest house is in an area where I had been advised by my staff not to go or venture alone. So, staying there is a far cry.

Finally, after a long thought about it, I decided to move in to the house. Excited???? Hmmmmm... Not much, but the situation called for it, so it has to be done. I had no other real options left to be honest.

With my peon, I went to the hotel checked out from there, paid the bill and headed straight to the room. Okay, upon entoring the house what I saw seemed to me like a nightmare. The house was filthy and it's not an exaggeration. It looked as if no one ever entered the room for years let alone clean it. Mattresses all over the place and clothes hanging here and there, dust all over the place and the worst, every sink was blocked and water clogging in each of them. Hmmmmmm....Thoughts of going back to the hotel hit me hard, but I had no other options as the hotel had been booked in advance from  8^th to the 20^th of December. I couldn't go back there either anyway.

So, I left my stuff there and went back to work, hoping that things will work out in the evening. I seriously needed to talk to the other guys. I mean the condition of the house was just a bit too bad for anyone to live in and I am not sure how they'd been doing that for all that time. Nevermind, reached office and it's an usual day at the bank. Talking to clients, opening account, verifying transactions etc.

Not this but the house looked something like this.

Returned home quite tired and spoke with the guys, first, small bit of intrduction with the guys. Let me tell you, this is going to be interesting. Each person with a very different personality and attitude towards things and life. Ummmmmm... Well, we'll talk about these people in detail later on. Even I need to know them better to write something about them anyway. With a bit of uncomfort, I went in, changed and sat down with them for a while. We talked for a while, then I realized I needed to buy few things, so we went to the market. It was just about 10-15 walking distance and these people prefer walking than taking an auto or a cab. I got myself a mattress and a few things neccessary for my use. Then I cleaned my supposed area and made my bed. Well, I asked them to do it as well. Honestly, I am a buit fussy about all these things. It was not in any way about being a new guy speaking too much, but this was something that had to be done. So everyone did. By 11pm at night, the house looked a bit better. Hmmmm...... At least I could sleep there now. So I slept.

After a while of living there, now not just the house looks livable but it's kind of clean now. Happy with it. The house is not bad, in fact it's very good, the locality is good and the people around there are pretty decent. Landlord seems to be a great man. He'd ask me every day if there is any problem or something. He'd always tell me “you are an out of towner, you don't look like us and people's behaviour towards you is not always going to be good. Some will taunt you, some will tease you or some will just pull a trick or two.” Well, this is what happens to us in most part of this country. Kind of used to of it now, however it never ceases to piss me off whenever it happens.

He'd go on to add “if you never need any help, just ask us straight and don't hesitate. You are my guest and it's my responsibility to take care of you”. Well, just the kind of words you want to hear in a place you don't know anything about. How much of a help they'd be, I am not sure. However saying that is enough for me to make me feel better and I felt better for sure.

The usual routine of waking up, going to office, coming back in the evening and having dinner at night. Oh well, yeah, dinner..... We eat our dinner by 7 or 7.30pm at night. Can you imagine 7.30 and dinner done. Even I was kind of shocked when they took me to eat at 7.00pm. My roommates come from work and head directly to the mess to eat. Well, maybe that suits them, but me, I frigging sleep at 00.30 am not at 10.00pm like them. Yeah, they sleep at 10 pm. Believe it or not. I used to eat dinner at 10pm in the hotel. Hmmmm.... That's gonna take a bit of extra effort to adjust to.

This is how I am still feeling, only sometimes though

There are a lot of things that needs to be sorted, from my side as well and their side at the same time, but we all share one thing in common. We all work in banks and all don't like our Managers. Don't know if that happens in every bank but all of us don't see eye to eye with our respective Managers for different reasons. At the end of our working hours we always find an hour or two to discuss about what goes inside our respective banks and how we deal with people and stuff. So, you can say so far it has been a smooth ride at the new house for me. Gelling well with the roomies and adapting well to the change in eating routine and sleeping as well.

The Guys are pretty decent and quite well mannered to be honest. I mean yeah, they live a lifestyle which is way different from mine, but they don't seem to complain about anything. Oh, well neither do I. Maybe because it's just been few days but there seems to be a kind of mutual respect among us. So, all is not bad around here.

The only problem is, these people live close by, well at least for me they live very near. Their houses are like 100km away from here, about  hours drive to be precise and I live frigging 1000km away from here and it takes friggin 14 hours to get there. You see what I am saying is, every weekend they all go to their homes and spend the weekend there. Which simply means that on weekends I am going to be alone. As I told you before, weekends are the time when I feel lonely the most. I can't however help it. They have a family and they need to see them just like I do.  Normally everything looks fine on the outside but inside it's all the same. I mean at the hotel I felt the same. Weekdays are fine as I work and sleep early so time just flies by. Weekends however has a different story to tell. Wake up and stay at home the entire day all by myself and sleep alone. It's not something I am very good at and it's gonna take a while for me to get used to. So, I have finally founf a home with few people to live with. Still the same feeling of loneliness stays. Things have got better for sure, however nostalgia grips me sometimes and I know, it will do so for a long time to come. Whether I like it or not, I will have to live like this for a while. So, it's the best for me to get accustomed to it sooner rather than later. Trying my best. Yeah I am.

Everything said and done, it's been more than a month since I have left home and yeah, adjusting slowly everyday. Everyday there is something new for me to learn, some new things that I need to get myself accustomed to and something new that I need to tell my parents to. There is always something new. This has so far been quite a good journey and I hope to get maximum out of it.

Christmas is knockin on the door now and I am still not sure about going home or not. I think I will but still there is a small bit of doubt that I might not be able to. I don't want to get into all that right now. I will rather just wait and see what happens and then maybe let you know about it.

That's it for now. Will see you soon. Till then take care and stay safe.

Adios!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!