Other than Blueline bus drivers, Delhi’slandlords are perhaps the city’s single-most vilified, demonised, traduced andabused resident group. They cut the water supply, hook their ACs to your metre,spy on female tenants, growl at alleged odours from the kitchen. Every migrant Iknow has a "wicked landlord" story. As it happens, I don’t.
I was lucky, I suppose. As landlords, I met good, upstanding specimens of middleDelhi—alright, middle Defence Colony—three disparate elements of thecity’s social mosaic who went on to become friends.
I began in a room above Brigadier Duggal’s garage. A large, loud man, he toldme stories of old wars, usually ones with labour unions at the PSU plant he ranpost-army. Pushing 80, the brigadier and his wife had busier evenings than I did(or still do). We often came home around the same time—they, for a respitefrom the social whirl; me, from night shift.
Their ground floor filled up only in the winter, when the children andgrandchildren arrived, from Hyderabad and America and farther afield. TheDuggals were the prototypical NRI parents. Delhi is full of them, but I didn’tknow it then: old people who spend the year pretending to be busy, waiting for afortnight of family reunion.
Next stop: the Entrepreneur. Three years after Mr Bhardwaj gave me his barsati,he became a case study: the first person I knew who’d lost his job thanks tothe WTO.
Mr Bhardwaj worked in an import consultancy, the type that "sorted out" yourcustoms hassles, helped you leap over tariff barriers. One evening in 2001, Ifound him forlorn. We went for a walk, and he told me his company was shuttingdown: "Yeh WTO ka chakkar hai ... Aap to jante hain, aap journalist hain."
He had lived in Def Col all his life, knew everybody in A Block, or so itseemed. "Why don’t you become a property broker," I suggested, "you havethe goodwill."
He liked the idea, thanked me for it and is today—to my utterbewilderment—one of the neighbourhood’s leading "property consultants".He’s got himself an office, also runs a courier agency and is diversifyinginto "home fittings".
In 2002, I walked down to Mr Bhardwaj’s apartment and told him I was gettingmarried and needed to move. He implored me not to but my mind was made up."Okay," he said after a moment’s silence, pragmatism quickly overcomingthe temporary emotion, "in that case let me find you a new flat... And Iwon’t charge brokerage. It’s a wedding gift."
So my old landlord found me my new landlord, Mr Saggi, the (Fellow) Migrant WhoMade Good. We liked the Saggis’ apartment but couldn’t afford the rent. Hewasn’t budging, until he discovered I was, like him, from Calcutta. TwoPunjabis broke into Bong, and a deal was done.
For two years now, my wife and I have had to go up to Mr Saggi, nudge him, tellhim rates are rising and inform him we’re unilaterally hiking our rent. He’snever asked, not once. Now do you wonder why I like Delhi?
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This article originally appeared in Outlook Delhi City Limits, May 15 2006.
