Where do we play?
Sundar was in his early sixties. He had been working in a good position in a leading Government firm and had retired recently. He was always active during his working days and hence even after retirement he chose to be active by becoming the General Secretary of the apartment where he and his son’s family lived – in separate apartments. One of the proposal that he was instrumental in taking forward was the expansion of the apartments. The Government had left some good space in front of the four blocks as a part of its planned apartment construction (When the apartments were originally constructed before some years) as per its procedures. The Government then sold off the apartments to individual tenants. Recently a lot of such Government built apartments were expanding in the open spaces available with them, across the city. Not to be left behind, Sundar too managed to get the permission to expand his apartments. Dharma, was his grand son. He was studying in the eighth standard.
“Today is one of the most important dates for this apartment Dharma. We have managed to get the permission to expand the apartments. We will no longer be a 2BHK apartment owners. We will be the proud owners of Three Bedroom, Two Hall and Kitchen apartments. You should be very happy as we are doing all this for you. Aren’t you exited to have a bigger house?”
“But Grandpa, all the owners have to pay for the expansion, right?”
“Yes. But we managed to get almost everybody’s approval except a couple of the owners. The turning point was the deal that we struck with this construction company. They have offered to do the construction, free of cost for us. We need to pay only for the materials. All they wanted in exchange was to construct one more floor – The Third floor and sell it at the prevailing market rates today. So, the owners were very happy. And so was the construction company as the existing real estate prices in this area has sky-rocketed recently”
“But what is the advantage to us?”
“We would be the proud owners of such a big apartment house, that too in a prime location in the city. That’s why I insisted that your father buy an apartment here itself”
“But Grandpa, you and Grandma live in a separate apartment. My parents and myself too live in our own apartment. Why do we need four halls and six rooms for the five of us?”
“You are too young to understand the real estate market. It is something like this – If we ever decide to sell an apartment after expansion, the returns would be very high”
“But would we ever sell, Grandpa?”
“That, I am not sure. Maybe not in the near future. But we can feel secure as we have such a high value property with us. Investing in property is always the best investment, dear”
“But we have already taken a loan to buy the house. Now we need to take another one for the expansion”
“Yes, that is there. But think about this – If we stayed in rental houses, we would be paying a considerable amount as rental every month and after a long time we would have paid a lot of money but we would not own any property. This is better than that, isn’t it?”
“But the rental amount would be considerably lesser, Grandpa. We would also be able to use the differential amount for having a better standard of living. Imagine if there is a misfortune and we are not able to pay the Bank installments”
“That is exactly what I was talking about. If ever such a misfortune arises, we could sell one of the apartments, settle the bank loan and still have a handsome amount to spend in our hands. All of us could always live in a single apartment after that”
“You are talking about the advantage that we could get, in the event of a misfortune, Grandpa. I was talking about the advantages we could have, without that misfortune. And on the top of that we require a misfortune to stay together!”
“Nothing like that. This is also like living together. You could always come here anytime you want, right?”
“Yes. But everything is separate, right? We have two kitchens, two separate furniture sets, double maintenance charges, when we could have easily avoided all that”
“But this was the best option available to me when your parents wanted to live separately. You are young. You cannot understand certain things in life. It will take some time before you grasp all these things”
“I too guess so. But Grandpa, where do we play Cricket after the expansion?”
Destination Infinity
PS: This post was inspired by This Blogpost by An Alien Earthling. Wondering if there is any connection between that post and this one? There is.
Very thoughtful…….I used to feel sometimes, why people behave like that being in the same city and living seperately……Its a different case for me, even if we want to have a joint family, there are no one :-(…..who all are left, we are together…humans only realise the value of something, even present, only when they feel the absence!!
Good story, Destination Infinity, and thanks for the link! I guess the connection is the improvement in the conditions of the homes but I think there is a second part to this story 🙂 Maybe not.
on the terrace 🙂 well that if the kids escape the "topper" mania 🙂
Nice one! One of my uncles said this as a joke, but it gave a more serious message to me:
One man(A) was talking to a colleague (B) at a new work place.
B asked A where he was staying after the move to the new work. A replied that he and his wife had rented a house at the outskirts.
B blurted out: "Oh, you live in a joint family!!?".
May not be relevant to this post… but God forbid that such days should come to pass!
A very nice story. That's the maturity shown by our kids today and we are negligent to it. Even if there is a place that can be occupied by a single brick they takes that.. 🙁
Our kids living in city were very poor
@Ashwin
a ver nice example.
Yes Sahaja. You are right. We feel the value of something only after it is taken away from us. Sometimes it is too late. It hurts when you know you can't go back and make amends. It hurts when you wonder at yourself – how could I do that? But we can't take total responsibility for our ignorance always. It's useful to think that it is the way the system is designed, I guess.
There is no second part Raj. The connection is more related to our concepts and ideas on property and ownership. All the people who gave their lands to the farmers at low rates in your article give out an important message. That it's possible.
Vishesh, we also tried playing at the terrace when we were young. Not very interesting. No glasses to break, frequently going up and down to fetch the balls… too uninteresting.
Ashwin, the humour in your comment lightens the actual effect. And thanks for lightening it.
Yeah Kanagu, we are more intent on imposing our views on the kids of today. It's many a time the case of "I was born intelligent, but education ruined me" 🙂
Destination Infinity
Ya…..we cant take total responsibilty for that as such…..Its nice to think about past in order to understand somethings about ourself and our reactions but should not live in the past 🙂
My mom keeps saying "girl I wonder how u will survive given that u r so ignorant of many things out there!! Ignorance is a bliss" I keep wondering if it is!!