A Series of Bitter-Sweet Events (Long Post)

The last one I wrote was in March. Since then mostly everything has changed.

My job, my city, my bank balance, my understanding of things, my perspective, my health. While there are some good things in there but they are deep down. Mostly all these changes have affected me in a negative way as of now.

It all started when we were informed that our project was coming to an end. This stirred up everything and everyone on my team. People started to look outside for jobs, updating their LinkedIn and Naukri profiles and just in a matter of weeks, resignations were everywhere. People had found jobs outside and were leaving. My team was the best part of my job. And when I saw everyone leaving one after the other, it was very difficult.

People were going here and there and being the junior member of my team, I was not getting many calls, and even if I was, I was failing in interviews. This coupled with seeing everyone go did take a toll on my mental health.

Eventually, I found a job. A good job in a good company with a very good salary. The only catch was, it was in Bengaluru. There was no remote option so if I had to work there, I had to move. While I did try to find offers in Pune, I did not find any.

Moving to Bengaluru was an exciting opportunity for me. AT THE TIME.

As you might have read in the previous blog posts I lived in Pune with my Parents and always wanted to live alone to reduce my dependency on them.

As the joining date came closer and I did not find any offers in Pune, a decision was to be made regarding the Bengaluru opportunity. My parents were ready to move there with me. This was something I was not comfortable with at all. I wanted to live alone and this seemed like a perfect opportunity for that. This went to and fro a lot of times and I being the stubborn person I am, did not compromise. However reluctantly, they finally agreed to my request.

The reason they agreed was that there was a problem. After 10 days of my joining, my father had to go back to Indore for some important work. In a new city, for us specially, finding a good house is difficult in just 10 days so me and my mother would have to stay in the hotel while my father would have gone and that too for a week. And the days on which I had to go to the office, my mother would be alone in the hotel which no one wanted given her health conditions.

My proposal to them was, I go alone and I book a hotel for a few days. I look for PGs around the area and move in one after checking out from the hotel. This would give me a window of around 20 days till my father's work in Indore is done. Since I have also not lived all alone before, 20 days would give me an idea of how living alone is carried out. After that, if I face problems or feel like not living alone, I would call my parents and we'll find a place to live. If I can live alone, then they can move back to Indore as in Bengaluru, the cost of living for 1 person < cost of 3 people. This was a middle ground and they agreed to this plan of action.

I started researching PGs around my office area and while there are a lot of options there, most of them had horrible reviews. These mentioned things like "stale and bad food being served", "PG owner repeatedly asking to switch rooms", "asking for a rent increase or vacate" etc. After a lot of review reading, asking for quotations on the phone, and a process of elimination, I found a decent PG that was close to my office and had decent reviews.

I booked my flight and 2 nights in a nearby hotel. Since the hotel, my office, and the PG were in a radius of 500m, it would be pretty easy for me to shift to the PG. I only had I suitcase and a backpack.

The day finally came. I had a morning flight from Pune at 7:30 AM and would reach BLR at 9:10 AM. I reached the airport with my parents, sister, and her husband and said goodbye to them. This was also my first flight. I was a little worried about the security checks but all of that happened very smoothly. I did not take any pictures from the plane window because...well.... what's the point...I hate people who take pictures of everything they come across. I did spot another plane flying in the distance though and I have saved the boarding pass.

I reached BLR 20 mins early and got to my hotel and decided to freshen up and talk to the PG owner about my moving in.

Up to this point, everything was going according to plan. Then I reached the PG.....

It was nothing as described in the reviews. I spoke to the PG owner on the phone when I selected that PG and asked for pictures which he did send. Those pictures were taken at the time when this PG was built or renovated that's why everything looked clean and new. The place itself was exactly the opposite of that.

The owner mentioned that the lift is not working. Red flag.

The corridor where he showed me the rooms were completely dark even in the middle of the day. It looked creepy like a horror movie set. Red flag.

The room itself was old but decent enough.

When I was in the corridor, I saw people coming down for lunch and everyone was carrying their plate. The place only provided food. Not even plates. Red flag.

For room cleaning, he mentioned that you have to leave your room key with them when you have to go to the office. If there are laptops and other expensive items, lock them in the wardrobe. Red flag.

I saw the washing machine that was kept down in the "lobby" and it was covered in a layer of dust. I am sure if anyone washed clothes in that machine, the clothes would get even more dirty. Red flag.

The owner was talking to another person (I think co-owner) about which room to give me and they decided that they would ask the guy in 401 to switch rooms and give 401 to me. Switching rooms is another red flag as they might ask me to do the same in the future. Also, the co-owner was having blood red eyes, He was surely drunk in the middle of the day. Red flag.

I had seen enough at this point and knew that this would not work out so just to get them off my back, I told them I would move in tomorrow and just left. I was afraid that if I lived there, someone might have killed me and sold my body for parts and no one would ever know. I knew this is one place that I will never look back to. It was exactly like the reviews of other PGs and I had fallen victim to its good reviews. Since the other PGs were already bad I knew on the way back to the hotel that I have to extend my stay there.

Upon reaching my hotel I told them to extend my stay and they told me that all of their rooms are booked. They said, if there is any cancellation, they would give me the room but as of that moment, I had to check out on the day I was supposed to.

That was the moment I started spiraling and second-guessing my every single decision. Without extension, I would have to move to a different hotel and the other hotels were a little far and about twice as much expensive. That was the moment I knew that I should not have come alone because these things are getting out of hand very quickly. I called my parents and told them about this.

"Every parent makes a lot of sacrifices for their kids." I have heard about this countless times but after hearing my problems, instead of saying "we told you so" when they decided to come the very next day, despite the expensive flight tickets and the fact that my father had to go back after 7 days made me realize this statement to the core. In the popular anime and manga "Record of Ragnarok",  there is a scene in which Adam (the father of humanity) says that "When it comes to protecting your children, do you even need a reason?". That line will never leave my mind now. I have just got a mere glimpse of how difficult being a parent is irrespective of the child's age. To the person reading this, I request you to go watch this two-minute scene and be thankful for everything your parents have done for you.

I should have listened to them when they were asking to come with me. 

They arrived and thankfully, there were some cancellations at the hotel due to which we were able to extend our stay for a couple of days. We started contacting brokers, and people from the Nobroker app and started visiting houses. Since we wanted one close to my office, it was slim pickings. 

After shortlisting, 3 houses, we decided to finalize the one which is closest to my office. It was a 2BHK.

The old tenant who was living in that house was moving out in about a week. We had to stay for another week at the hotel and while we were able to extend our stay for another two days at the hotel, we had to check out. The hotel manager said that there is another hotel which is about 1.5km away and he knows the owner of that hotel so moving to that hotel would be easier and also inexpensive. I had to go to the office that day and after I left, my parents checked out of the hotel and moved to the other one. The other hotel was not very good but since it was a matter of days, we decided to manage it.

The next day my father had to leave for Indore and I had to go to the office. Even though no one wanted it, there were few hours for which my mother was all alone in that hotel. Luckily, there were no problems. The food in this hotel was very bad and not at all eatable. I had to order both meals of the day from Swiggy. Finally, the day came when the old tenant was out of the house and I and my mother moved in. There was no furniture apart from a sofa set.

We slept on the floor and the sofa by dividing the sofa seats which luckily were removable. All of our stuff was in Pune which had to be brought here. That is where my sister and her husband took the torch in hand. They called packers and movers and dispatched all our stuff from there. Not only that, since we knew the tentative date when the stuff will arrive in BLR, my sister even flew to BLR for 2 days so she can help my mother to unpack and arrange things in my father's absence.

At the time of writing this, me and my mother are sitting here with 80% of the house set up. My sister is back to Pune.My father will be coming today at midnight. There are a lot of other details that I can mention in this post but I will leave those things and instead focus on some other things.

I have realized that while living all alone has a lot of advantages, it is not for me. At this point, I am archiving the idea of living alone and will think 100 times if an opportunity comes up. Read the previous post and you will see a contrast in my perspective then and now.

I have also noted that if there is something that you should do but you don't, then there comes a time you have to do that thing a lot to balance it out. It sounds weird, but let me give an example. I did not spend a lot of my money in Pune. As a result, I had to spend a lot of it in one go after moving to BLR. Be it security deposit for the new house or hotel bills. I did not write any blog post since 5th March and here I am writing a big one on 6th July to cover all the things. If you don't take a lot of holidays then something will happen which will force you to take a lot of them in one go. It's a bit difficult to explain. I hope you get the point.

Hotels suck. Even the first hotel which was a good one, after about 1 week, it seemed like I would die in there.

Empty houses suck. Household items (not even decor) can change the entire vibe of the house.

After eating hotel food and restaurant food for 2 weeks, I now know the importance of a home-cooked meal. People say that to understand this, one has to move away from house/family. You don't have to necessarily move away. Just the lack of home food in any way is enough for one to come to this realization.

Long-term plans should be avoided as we don't know what the future holds for us.

Talking to family members on phone is very important.

It sounds like the line from Fast movies but family IS the most important thing.

My stubbornness and rash decision making is the reason why me and my parents had to face difficulties. Even if no one says it, I know it.

What now?

Before my parents arrived, there was a point where I wanted to return the company's assets and just come back to Pune on the first flight I got. Upon talking to some of my seniors, they told me that this is not the right thing to do. With the current market situation, it would be difficult to get a job and even I knew that this is an impulsive decision so it's good that I did not go through with it.

It is my third week here and things are slowly coming to an equilibrium. Am I fully comfortable here? No.
But the third week is better than the third day so based on this data, the coming weeks should be more easy (I hope).

I will be more active on this blog as I have a lot of new things and ideas to write about.

I have a plan but I won't be revealing it here, especially at this time.