Wednesday 26 June 2013

The Landlord


After passing out of college, my good friend Sinha immediately came to Bangalore. As the market was tight that time, so most of us had to struggle a bit for our first job. Initially we found Bangalore quite horrible place to live in. In order to rent a house, tenants required to pay 10 month’s rent in advance and the cruel tradition is still being followed. WTF? As miserable job seekers, we didn’t have any other option but to stay at a hostel. Food was really the major challenge for me and it was quite overpriced, but the Andhra Mess made many of our life smoother to some extent. Sinha was quite fortunate enough, as his elder brother was working in Bangalore that time and he used to stay with him. 

It seemed Sinha’s landlord was an extraordinarily distinguished kind of character. He was extremely dark, little short and absolutely round shaped. He always looked serious, especially with his tenants and used to smile only on special occasions. Whenever Sinha used to encounter his landlord, the picture of a Rhino used to come to his mind. He stayed at a different place and usually used to visit all his tenants on the 1st of every month. Well you guessed it right, to collect the house rents and he had 4-5 tenants at that place. But sometimes, very rarely though, he also used to give odd kind of visits to the territory, possibly because of some maintenance issue. He couldn’t speak or understand English and his knowledge in Hindi was extremely adorable and on top of that, his Hindi pronunciation was very entertaining. Whenever he used to go to collect rent, he would usually sit on a chair and quite lazily used to count the money. As soon as he finished counting the money, he used to repeat the process for few more times. In the meantime, Sinha constantly used to stare at his face, as if he expected something out of it. A little later, Sinha used to see a very charming and extremely satisfying smile on the landlord's face. He would be very happy that moment and before leaving, he usually would say in his broken Hindi "if you have any problem just inform me"

One morning after breakfast, Sinha was standing at the front door and all of a sudden he encountered the Rhino. Sinha was confused and wondered why the landlord came almost a week earlier to collect his rent? The landlord must have liked Sinha, as he had a smile on his face and asked him “Kya Samachar hai? What the news?”

Sinha was little confused and thought he might have asked about cricket score, as some cricket tournament was going on that time. He replied "actually I don’t watch much cricket. What else news you want to know?"

The smile immediately disappeared from the landlord's face and he looked quite serious and confused. Later Sinha realized that it was his usual way to greet "Hello, how are you?" 

The landlord immediately changed the topic and asked "Gaon ko kab jata? When you would go to village?"

Sinha again got confused and replied "Kaun sa gaon? Which village? Actually my home is not at a village. Even though it’s not like Bangalore, but it’s definitely not a village, it’s a big town"

That moment the landlord was exceedingly confused and said to Sinha "OK OK, Bye" and immediately left from there. 

Sinha later realized that Gaon is actually quite a common term and doesn't necessarily mean a Village. Quite often it’s used as a synonym for someone’s native place. Even if any tenant could be from heart of Mumbai, someone could still ask him "Gaon ko kab jata?"

63 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Haha Zeba :) that was not the intention though!

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  2. :D "the Andhra Mess made many of our life smoother to some extent." -- You know, Andhra Bhavan in Delhi is making our lives very smooth too. Cheap and to-die-for biryani and what not in a city which robs you of your hardly-earned money in every corner. :) Nice one!!

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    1. Haha Sakshi :) Andhra mess are awesome. People could fill their tummy tightly in reasonable price. Briyani is expensive by the way :)

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  3. :D so funny... i have heard all these terms, never felt it so humorous then

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    1. Hehe.. it's common terms out here. We are so used to them and don't find humorous most of the time.

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  4. 10 month’s rent in advance :O
    :D The confusion game! Funny!!
    OK OK Bye :P

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  5. it should have been Titled Sinha Vs Rhino :D
    many say.. kya haal hai or aur.. tabiyat paani maje mei ??to greet and u feel like what ?? What was wrong with my heath . What my health has to do with water? :D
    Nice read bhai

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    1. Haha Jack :) tabiyat to thik hai but paani kahan se aa gaya? aaj to itni dhoop hai :) Glad u liked the post!

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  6. Hahha .. when will these Andra people understand hindi ... the situation there is seriously pathetic ... even my friends have some funny tails ...
    As always witty and funny Jahid Bhai !!

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    1. Haha.. it happens, cultural and language conflict. But people are very decent out here. Glad U liked the post :)

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    2. @Readersheaven Bangalore was in Karnatka the last time i checked. ;-)

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  7. Amazing Rhino of Bangalore. :-). Nice read..

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    1. Thanks Bedanga :) glad u enjoyed the post!

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  8. You're so very true...Everyone in bangalore especially the locals one(no hard feelings on them) ask me as "tumhara Gaon ka naam kiya hai?" I am m like What the Hell,I am for Assam and it is a State not a Gaon and Guwahati is also not a Gaon but the largest city in entire NE...I wish at least they should know some Geography.. :-P

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    1. Haha.. Harsha :) by gaon they actually mean Ur native place and not necessarily a village. Regarding geography, people are usually weak in that in compare to history :)

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  9. hehe.. even here in Mumbai.. they refer Native place as Gaon... sounds really silly.. all my life I have heard this, and every time someone asks me about my "gaon" I love to correct them with a touch of sarcasm adding my fav line- "Duniya ka sabse bada aur sophisticated & modern gaon hai Kolkata"

    Loved the Landlord's pic ;)

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    1. Haha.. Namrota :) "Duniya ka sabse bada aur sophisticated & modern gaon hai Kolkata" nice one .. sounds silly but entertaining as well. Glad U liked the post and thanks for visiting out here!

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    2. hehe .. yeah.. entertaining indeed :D

      and I enjoy your posts :)

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    3. Thanks. Extremely happy to know that :)

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  10. Replies
    1. whitefield to ata jata. JPNagar kab ata?

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  11. Jahid, enjoyed reading this cultural piece. Love the image.

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    1. Thanks Madhu Ji :) Glad u liked the cultural piece and the image as well. Image source is internet, by the way :)

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  12. That much can be extracted from our life that we think is dull and presented in a humorous manner is evident from the post. The image is very funny and seems to be a prototype of the landlord.

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    1. Thank U so much Kajal. I am glad U found the presentation interesting and humorous. Yes, searched a similar kind of image from the internet :)

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  13. hahha...good one.. I have spent a good amount of time in Bangalore and that too in a Girls Paying Guest. I can very well relate to all these incidences. My PG caretaker also used to ask me "Tumhara Gaon kidhar hai"...and i was so habituated to this word afterwards that after my occasional visits to my hometown in north, whenever I met her...I used to humbly tell her ki "Gaon gayi thi" :D :D

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    1. Haha Jiggyasa :) Nice to know that U spend good amount time in Bangalore. Glad u enjoyed the post. By the way "Tumhara Gaon kidhar hai?"

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  14. haha! poor Rhino. I feel really bad for him. But altogether, an amusing piece, bringing a smile on someone's face isn't an easy job, and you did it quite right. :)

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    1. Aha! I am so delighted the post could bring smile on Ur face. Thank U so much for visiting out here!

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  15. Thanks Rajneesh Sir. Glad u liked the post. Thanks for visiting out here!

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  16. You have interesting posts to recount-nice one.

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  17. Each time I read one of your posts, I learn a little something about a part of the world I've only seen in movies. I enjoy learning about your culture. Today I've learned that miscommunication is universal. Good job!

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    1. Aha! I am really delighted to know U read my posts and even learned something about this part of the world. Yeah, miscommunication is quite universal. Thanks for visiting out here Michelle!

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  18. Well captured! The mysteries of language :) befuddlement on all sides.

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    1. Yeah Kalpana, the mysteries of language :) Glad U liked the post!

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  19. A funny article. I could actually imagine the landlord sitting on the chair and counting money again and again. had a good laugh :)

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    1. Thanks Yamini. Glad U enjoyed the post and could imagine the landlord sitting on the chair and counting money again and again :)

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  20. Quite funny... This happens, in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Gandhi Nagar, Chennai and Bhubaneswar at least to my knowledge, in different form and in different languages.

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    1. Yes, very correct, this happens across India. Glad U enjoyed the post and found it funny!

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    1. Thanks Sridevi. Glad u liked it. Thanks for visiting out here!

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  22. Haha! Excellent stuff. Language differences always make for very interesting anecdotes. Loved reading it. You have inspired me to dig up some from my memories and write about it! :D

    Mithun.
    www.mithunmukherjee.in

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    1. Yes, language differences are usually interesting. Glad u liked the post. I am extremely delighted to know that even I cold inspire someone to write. Thanks for visiting out here dude!

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  23. The first two paragraphs reminded me of my job search days in Bangalore from 2004. Similar story and almost the similar landlord guy who used to run our PG Hostel. :-)

    And when I moved to Pune, the 1st thing which got me confused was: "Gaon kahan hai?". Ok my city not big as Pune but it's certainly not a gaon.

    Just yesterday I was reminiscing about the good ol' days: http://www.deepakgupta.org/post/54529627504/3rd-july-2004

    Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Great to know that this post refreshed some of ur old memories. "Gaon kahan hai?" is used in many places in India:) Thanks for visiting out here Deepak!

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  24. Hey!Nice post..
    My sister too had her first job at Bangalore..I could relate much of this post to what she used to mention! :D
    Cheers! :)

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    1. Thanks Pooja :) Nice to know that U could relate much of this post. Thanks for visiting out here Pooja :)

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  25. ha ha.. this Gaon thing is very common in Mumbai too.. everyone kept on asking me, whats your gaon and I got so utterly confused

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    1. Yeah, i know about gaon in Mumbai :) watched in few movies about gaon as well :) the Gaon term is also used in many parts of India and it's very confusing!

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  26. :D well-written !

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    1. Thanks Divya :) Glad U enjoyed the post !!

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  27. The USP of your posts Jahid undoubtedly is the humourous streak that is implanted in everyday situations.Nice...keep sharing

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    1. Thanks Rajeev for such nice words :) Glad U like my posts and find it humorous. Thanks a lot for visiting out here !!

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