Flat No. 2

Aye dil hai mushkil
Jeena yahan
Zara hat ke
Zara bach ke,
Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan
Ha haa, ha ho ho, ho hi haa ha haa
Hm hm hm hm, hm hm hm , hm hm hm hm hm
Aye dil hai mushkil
Jeena yahan
Zara hat ke
Zara bach ke,
Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan

~~CID
~~Majrooh Sultanpuri


When I left home and came to Hyderabad, I was both scared and excited. Scared because I was staying away from home for the first time end excited for exactly the same reason! Everything about Hyderabad excited me, the job, the city, the prospect of finding a new house, setting up that house, deciding who to live with, new friends, basically a completely new life.I met my first roommate in the guest house, when we decided we would live together, we don't know. We were the only ones joining that week and naturally bonded. We went looking for houses together and found one we liked and decided on that one.

I stayed in that house for 11 months, shared a room. I loved that house, i liked the location, it was right next to a bookstore, it wasn't too big, so the three roommates spent a lot of time with each other, the kitchen was fully stocked, there was a bread-eggs-milk store right next tot the house, which saved us on many weekends.

I then shifted to another house, nearby, with my own room. I fell in love with the house when I went to see it the first time. It was nice and big, but there was still this common space for all staying. The kitchen was bigger than the last one and well stocked. I had my own balcony and there was a washing machine!

I eventually settled down there. But what I love and loved about Flat # 2 was none of the things I mentioned above. I loved the people. I looked forward to get home everyday and spend time in the drawing room with my flatmates, we would cook occasionally, basically, life had adopted a nice shade of orange, yellow and gold, the same shade that you see when the sun sets in a dessert. It was peaceful, there was music, there were crazy laughing session, there were movies, mostly Shah, but generally happiness in life.

My four crazy roomies, were absolute fun.

With one I sat and talked and talked and talked about life, people, the good, the bad and the ugly. Whenever in doubt I used to rush to her room, at 11 am on a saturday or even a 2 am on a friday night. I sat down on that big bean bag, and said her name softly, she would stop whatever she was doing and look at me, with those big pretty eyes and I would pour my heart out. There was one time, when after a similar session, both of us went to bed. And woke up at 4 am in the night to eat something, she made us bread and chilly potatoes using the Dominos Chilli flakes. We loved to clean, there was one time when we got back from work and started cleaning the kitchen and cleaned cleaned and cleaned for two hours and then clicked pics of the clean kitchen, proud of our big achievement! we loved listening to old songs loudly, one of our favorites was "Yeh Hain Bombay Meri Jaan". I miss that bean bag, those red curtain, that bookshelf full of books. We loved our chai, and loved a place called Sandarshini which served the most absolute aalu paranthe!I miss the fact that she was just a step away, I could walk over to her anytime and she would look up from her laptop and say my name. She would now say, she is always 'just a step away' and I believe her.

My other roomie was an absolute sweet heart. You wouldn't say that in your first meeting with her though. An absolute coffee addict, loved her upma, and when she said "aie" everyone stopped what they were doing and listened. When we are all dressed up to go out, and when she asks "Am I looking nice?!" If your answer was "no" she would give you a deadly "how-dare-you" look and by mistake if you said "yes" she would say "aie don't lie da, have the guts to tell me the truth!". Her room was the cleanest...not. Out of the one hour the maid spent on cleaning our house, she took 45 mins to clean hers. Chacha Choudhary would be impressed by her math and calculating skills. A big big speciality of hers was knowing the address, relationship status, age, job info of any and every person. You throw her a first name and she will complete it with the second name. The secret to this vast repository of utterly useless info was Facebook. When I joined the house they played a game with me, I was to give her a name and she will come back with "stats" about that person in less than a minute. It was Bournvita Quiz contest, dwithiya!

My third flatmate, was another Shah fan. Crazy. We would watch Shah movies and laugh cry, sing along, complete dialogues before Shah even opened his mouth on the screen. We would put post-its on our rooms for when a Shah movie was being shown on Set Max, even though both of us had every dvd of every movie. The joy of watching a movie on Set Max was just too much! There was this one time when we were watching Fauji in her room and we laughed at a Shah dialogue and we fell down from her bed laughing, my other roomie came running from her room to check what happened because we were screaming with laughter, we showed her the scene again and laughed harder until we were crying with laughter. Our favorite hangout was SFC: South-India Fried Chicken. No. Im kidding, it was Southern Food Cafe and you got awesome-est chai and coffee there. We loved drama, tears, laughter, complete bollywood style!

My last flatmate, was a pure stroke of luck. We worked in the same office, and had a few common friends, but I had never spoken to her and she never to me. She had lived in flat # 2 and then decided to move back when we had a vacancy. The first time I met her was when I was unpacking from my trip and I heard scream with glee, I looked up and said "hey" still unsure of the "new girl". She said "I have exactly the same top!", after three minutes, she screamed again, we had another similar kurta. I then looked up and there was this instant glow around her, I liked her that very minute. She and I hit off awesomely, we went shopping together and had our days when we came home without anything in our hands and days when we would be laden with shopping-covers! We loved shine, glitter, colours. The only thing that made us both get out of our lazy stupor on Saturday/Sunday mornings was the Cold Coffee in a place called G2G, our second home. We both loved Aisha and sang those songs for an entire month, to the utter annoyance of our other flatmates. She was an absolute cricket fan, there was no chance that she wasn't following the Men in Blue when they were playing. There was one night when we just played with our new Nexus Ones (i was especially intrigued by the FlashLight app) and realized at 2 am that we ought to sleep if we wanted to wake up on time for work the next day. There was another time when we shopped until 8pm because there was a sale, when we had a bus to catch for Bangalore at 8:30. If this wasn't enough, we packed the new clothes and wore them in Bangalore and went out! It was only fitting that I was a bridesmaid at her wedding, that too in pink. I am glad my suitcase that day had exactly the same top as hers.

So this was Flat # 2 for me. My haven, my home away from home. Today if I go back to the house, when I look around, I see memories everywhere, in the drawing room, in front of the TV, in the balcony, in each of the four bedrooms. My four other roomies are everywhere, we are all laughing at some random joke, I see myself cry, laugh, jump, sing, dance with these girls. I owe many many many of my happy moments in Hyderabad to Flat # 2. So cheers to flat no. 2 and some of my happiest moments!


Kahin building kahin traame,
Kahin motor
Kahin mill
Milta hai yahan sab kuchh
Ik milta nahin dil
Insaan ka nahin
Kahin naam-o-nishaan
Zara hat ke zara bach ke,
Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan