I was overjoyed. The wife had agreed to a key proposition of mine. Since we were not going to go back to our ‘native place’, Kolkata, immediately after my job was done in Bangalore, could we not buy a small flat, extremely modestly-priced, as a second home? What clinched the argument was my repeated assertion that property rates are now down, and this is the best time to acquire something.
I still swear by my business journalism credentials and maintain that property is much more affordable today than it was a year ago — if you know where to look. Bangalore, like Gurgaon, has seen a massive boom, and is undergoing a much-needed correction. But there is a disconnect somewhere.
On good advice, I tried registering myself at one of the many property websites but half an hour down the line I was still struggling with classifying my preferences as its requirements got more and more complex. So, I went back to the good, old print medium and started with the property supplements. Soon, I realised that the real neighbourhood is very different from that mentioned in the ad or the brochure. Whitefield is where the prices are down, my journalistic information told me. So when I read the details for a particular development, and the price seemed almost affordable, I set out on what turned out to be an odyssey.
Whitefield of the broad roads and massive new structures housing software firms eventually gave way to small-town India, with vegetable sellers spreading out their offerings on the ground by the road and labourers walking to work with a slow, deliberate pace. Then, small-town gave way to country green and eventually came a railway level crossing, with the metal surfacing of the road completely disappearing. I ultimately found the development next to a cluster of tall trees with birds twittering amongst them. It was still less than 20 kilometre from the centre of the city, but in India, you can go from city to open-drain small town to countryside in under two kilometres.
On the way to this idyllic spot, most suited for a country home, from where it would take over an hour to get to town, I had passed the development of one of the well-known builders. Most of the apartments had been sold and some families had already moved in, but some of the blocks were yet to be finished, not to speak of the landscaping and the boundary wall. The blocks were huge, with god knows how many floors. The apartments, small to begin with, looked tiny and matchbox-like as the eye travelled to the higher floors. Do the city’s fire engines have ladders that can reach those floors in case of an emergency, I kept wondering. And people pay a bomb to live on higher floors!
I made the quick journey from modern to fly-infested traditional India repeatedly. Kasturi Nagar is not at the top of the heap and nowhere near the heart of town. But it is quite green and clean, the roads are spacious, the independent houses uncluttered and there are few high rises. You can at least take a pleasant morning walk here, I thought. But as I finally approached my destination, my heart sank. The last quarter kilometre of road was filthy, with open drains, and from your prospective apartment you would have an unimpeded view of a semi-slum. India does not change by the kilometre, I realised, it does by the street.
And where city remains city, other factors intervene. ‘Off Airport Road’ (the one that served the old one, now closed) is not known for greenery but is quite central, minus the heavy traffic that was its staple not so long ago. So I went there in search of accessibility and liked the place I saw. The street was not tarred and it had no trees but everything would come in due course, I was assured. The next morning, when I narrated my experience to the real estate expert in our office, he promptly replied: “Don’t go there, it gets absolutely flooded during the rains.” No wonder it was affordably priced.
Unwilling to give up, I tried again. This time my target was properties advertised as ‘near Outer Ring Road’, all the way from Banaswadi to the Hebbal flyover. Naturally, all the properties were on the wrong side of the artery and you often got there after a long ride that started in urban India and ended in semi-urban India. Seeing my expression change as we kept journeying, the salesperson, trying to reassure me, said the underpass below the Outer Ring Road would be ready in two months and then I could get to to my destination in minutes. Have faith, he was averring.
I was getting something wrong somewhere, and decided to take advice from a couple of experts. Everything fell into place when one of them flatly told me that with my budget I would not be able to get a proper place in the city, no matter how small.
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I know what’s wrong with me, but what happens to the middle class looking for a first home without a corporate or MNC salary, I keep wondering. There seems to be something unsustainable in post-liberal India, between its family incomes (in most cases) and property prices, even when the market is down.