Bargaining

My girl Pashmi (still waiting for that friend request, Pashmi!) was full of wise words. "It's fucking hot here," for instance. She also told me about a place to go looking for an apartment.

I had been planning on renting an apartment for the 7 weeks or so that I'm here. Labor and materials are both ridiculously cheap in Mumbai, but land is similarly ridiculously expensive (Mumbai is a tiny penninsula formed from 7 islands and a bunch of landfill - there just isn't much land to go around). My dad's student's friend, Dharmesh Joshi, was my main man on the apartment front. As of a couple weeks ago, I had an apartment all lined up - a nice one room place in "good society" (Dharmesh crafted some bomb sentences in his descriptions of my "roof to park under.") Then, on Sunday - 3 hours before I was heading off to JFK (see Daly, 2009 "Welcome to India) I got an email from Dharmesh telling me that, actually, I did not have an apartment. Oh. OK. Sweet. Thanks Dharmesh.

So, I scrambled. The cousin of a friend of mine lives in Bandra, the neighborhood I'd been targeting. I had been in contact with him and knew that he was in the U.S. until June 22. So, I called him up (from my seat on Air India 140 – re-defining last-minute) and asked him if I could stay in his apartment until he came back. I am now writing this blogpost from the air-conditioned comforts of Mike Delfs' two-bedroom Bandra apartment.

But this sweet (free - !) arrangement is up in a few days. So, back to square one. And back to Pashmi's suggestion. I went to the place she recommended and found a nice guy – we'll call him Suryakant, because that's his name – who showed me around a legitimately dope spot. View of the ocean, big bedroom, nice (shared) living room, laundry and breakfast included. 5980 rupees per night. Efff - that's about 120 bucks - not gonna happen. Without even asking, I was able to get that price down to Rs 4500. Better, but still a no-go. When I was clearly dragging my feet, he went down to 4000. If only the South Asia Initiative was balling like that.

He then offered me another place, a few minutes drive away, for Rs 3000. Ok, now we're getting somewhere. I went off in a rickshaw with his sidekick and checked out the other place. View of a parking lot, smaller room, nice (shared) living room, laundry and breakfast included. Solid.

Back at the office with Suryakant, we went into full bargaining mode. "2500 rupees per night," I offered. "That's the best I can do."
" Hmm... Ok, I will check with my manager.....But no free breakfast!"