On the draft agreement
A
I.a. in the case of your house, the ground floor and the top floor are not exactly two separate entities
– the upper floor is not self contained.
b.with the lease restricted to the ground floor only, you are free to hire out the “top floor” to some one else and that person or one of you legal heirs might start staying there – which is going to be extremely inconvenient for both parties.
If you are going to say that you are not going to do so,
then, why “the ground floor” and not the house ?
If it is about the locked rooms, a specific mention can be made in the agreement regarding that; you can even seal the door of the rooms for added safety.
So, please make THE LEASE FOR THE HOUSE and not for the ground floor only
II.
a. I am going to use the house as my private residence.
b. with the possession of the house in your hands, strictly speaking, I wont even be able to lock the house; and ( theoretically at least ) anyone of the legal heirs or for that matter, on that pretext anybody else is free to barge in at any time - and there wont be anything I can do about it.
Again if your response is that you are not going to do any such thing,
Then why this clause!
The stipulations are already there, that I have to hand over the house in as is where is condition as it was when I took over and have to compensate for damages.
I am ready to increase the security deposit if you think that can be of any moment in this regard
III.
I have not checked up the inventory as yet but I do not think there should be a problem there.
All the same an akai television set has been brought to the house since my last visit. I was given to understand that the person who was using it had returned it as it was no more working.
B
JYOTHI
20101208_1600hrs
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the above is the copy of an e_mail i had sent to a learned lawyer in connection with my hiring their trivandrum corporation No.6/1499 house. the deed fizzled out and there was no further communication and i am back in "valayil" .
and now
THE STORY IN DETAIL.
i was handed over the key of number 6/1499, on 26 of november 2010 and was told i can stay there and i can shift my things over. but from the beginning i had insisted on a written agreement and did not want to move in without things being finally settled and all is in black and white.things got prolonged - a busy professional has, unlike me, other things to attend to. for example if it is a learned lawyer who is practising in the sessions court it could mean the difference between the hangman's noose and freedom for an ordinary mortal like me!
so i took up a sort of temporary residence in that house in trivandrum (and had till i left on the night of 20 dec 2010 spent eleven nights there). i had a skeleton set up there what with facility to warm my bath water and brew a hot cuppa. my motor bike was also moved to trivandrum and came in handy for my running round looking up property for sale.
ultimately on december 08 ( if i remember correctly ) i got the draft format by email and as desired i gave my comments on the draft in the reply mail - the one quoted above.
there was no response to the mail and i came back to this place on 11th. and when i telephoned this person on 14 dec 2010 from my home telephone at kizhakkambalam i was told , rather rudely i would say, that if i want i can take the house on their terms.
i had already burnt my boats - and had as was legally required given the one months notice for vacating the kizhakkambalam house and going back on that would be real awkward. so i told the person i am ready to take the house on their terms upon which i was told that the agreement will be sent to an intermediary, a neighbour of theirs in trivandrum that day itself or the next day. so i left in the evening for trivandrum and it was then that i carried the extra luggage.
the promised agreement never reached me. it looks the answer that i will take the house on their terms was not the anticipated one and it was expected that i will walk out on my own once they press all sorts of funny demands, the rights and wrongs of which are very evident from the contents of the mail quoted above.
expect the best and prepare for the worst.
my ideas are, and were, clear - expect the best and prepare for the worst. i did not move my luggage from here in spite of these very same people telling me repeatedly that i can do so.
every eventuality is being catered for
( got it mr. gestapi ? )
and again i am prepared for any eventuality; if plan A fails there is plan B. and plan B, put into action once the interesting legal restrictions came, was that i will use the house for dumping my things and parking my vehicles and i myself will stay in a hotel room or some thing - and that situation could have come up even otherwise for i was wondering if i would have any space to move around once i put all my things inside such a small house and in fact during the cooler times i had requested them if they could shift some of their things kept in the open rooms to the two rooms on top that they have locked up.
once i accepted their terms i am afraid people were caught on the wrong foot and wouldn't know what to do. now that i did not take the bite it looks the problem was who is going to tell me that the deal is off and on what pretext!
i waited till the weekend for the so called agreement to come and then packed my things. i had some work on 20th and now that i have stayed in that house for around eleven days one more day could hardly make a difference - most of the decent accommodation in the city had been taken, what with the holidays and the school sports and all - and stayed till 20th, settled the accounts, handed over the keys and left by a night train the same day.
i drove my motorbike to the railway station ( luckily during the night - the passers by wouldn't know who it is ) with one travel bag hooked on to the back seat, one precariously balanced on the petrol tank in front, plus a back pack. now look at what would have happened if i had moved my things as suggested by these characters; i would have ended in a real trap !
incidentally when i chose this particular house i had another house on offer and chose this one rather than the other cute newly built house as this was cheaper - there was going to be a saving of about 1000 rupees per month on rent alone that way and for a destitute old man living on a monthly pension of 6500 rupees it is a big sum. it is very unlikely i would have ended up in such an awkward situation if i had chosen the other house - but there is no point crying over spilt milk!
and even in the other house things could have gone wrong in a similar manner later on for who can resist the "charms" of the (indian + gestapo =) gestapi ( it is a plainclothes policeman who calls himself cbi "officer" and his stooges from the other spy net works of the government like the so called "special" branch of the local police )
the Travails of the homeless
the standard pattern here is that in the agreement there is no signature at all of the owner. it is just an undertaking made by the tenant and if the land owner wants they can throw him out at any time. people are not aware of these facts or because of their compulsions they do sign these document - somebody with family, a wife and children cannot afford to take stands.
of course the question does not come up when you are rich.
money, money, money;
^@ ^ &#$ % *%$$#@ (*&^%
IT'S A RICH MAN'S WORLD.
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epilogue
i reached kochi in the early hours of the morning - 0430hr - on 21 dec 2010 and walked to the bus station nearby by 0510hrs and the chap at the enquiry of the transport station told me the bus to my place has already left at 0500 hrs and there are no buses to valayil in the next couple of hours or so on an earlier similar trip when i reached the bus adda the very same chap had told me that the bus had left at 0530 - that day i had reached the bus station at past 0600hrs - it looks the bus has a habit of leaving a few minutes before i reach the place .
so i took bus 1. to palarivattom --> bus 2. palarivattom to kakkanad --> bus 3. kakkanad to pallikkara and --> bus 4. pallikkara to molikurisu ( the total distance covered is less than 25 kms) and was back home rather early at 0730 hrs than past 0800hrs if i had waited for a direct bus to molikurissu.
i was dead tired and sleepy - though i had a reserved berth one could hardly go to sleep for the train starts from tvm at 1140 and reaches ernakulam at 0340 and one doesnot want to wake up at grurvayur.
but the pity of it was i could not afford to go to bed even after reaching home - yesterday for once i was on my toes most of the time.
the locker of my godrej storewell had got stuck and my things including my lily's original and duplicate keys and remotes as well as important documents were all in it and i had to perforce get it opened. so called the godrej helpline and the fellow promptly came and forced it.
when i initially told him the story on the phone i could hear surendran laughing merrily but once he reached here he realised what he was in for really. then he changed the tune and said that the key i was using was not the actual key of the locker. but once he priced it open he could open the lock with the same key and in the end in spite of my having to shed out 330 bucks as charges to godrej it was me who was laughing out loud. i dont blame surendran for he has never met an indian gestapo ( it is a plainclothes policeman who calls himself cbi "officer" and his stooges from the other spy net works of the government like the so called "special" branch of the local police ) even in his dreams and do not know of their capabilities.
once he was finished i drove my lily three kms to the nearest state bank atm to pay surendran and dropped him at pookkkott pati. came back and took off again with the empty gas cylinder to the cooking gas agent to collect a new cylinder - incidentally i do not need a new cylinder for my second cylinder will last at least another couple of months. the problem is that if you do not buy at least one cylinder every six months your account will be locked and to prevent that i perforce have to buy a cylinder now. funny, no?
then i drove off to the railway station where i had left my two bags in the cloak room to pick them up. the fact of the matter was that during my two trips to no. 6/1499 i had carried as much as i can thinking that the earlier and the more the things i shift now, i wont have to carry that along when i am doing the final shifting. so i was forced to buy a new travelling bag - the csd came in handy there and i got a good piece at a real ok price. and it was impossible to trudge along with both bags plus a back pack - in trivandrum i had my royal enfield to help me out and i wanted to avoid hiring an auto rikshaw at that time of the night or rather early morning for the charges are going to be extra heavy!
and by the way my bike is there in the parking lot of trivandrum central - try pinching it. you are not up to the mark? dont worry there is some thing else - the helmet. it is just hooked on to the handle and not locked and even you can pinch it. everybody has to start somewhere !
and incidentally petite lily it looks has been molested while i was not here. she is in the open exposed to the ravages of the elements as well as that of the indian pimp service - sticky gears, the door lock jammed; she even stalled a number of times while i was coming back from ernakulam last night. i am afraid the controls have been fiddled with and very soon the poor thing is also going to face the same fate as her older brother my enfield bullet. a pity indeed - both are fine machines; i can vouch for that. incidentally it is left front door that is being opened mostly.
back home after making purchases at a provision store en-route i was dead tired. and by the time i had a bath, all i wanted was to get into bed - i did not even cook my dinner but made to with some rusks and things i had brought along. so tired in deed i could not even get to jerk off in the bed as i had planned and slept like a log till the pbird shrieks woke me up in the early morning.
- beware of assanges ( did i spell it correctly? )
i was abstaining for the last fortnight or so for the sun in trivandrum is real hot ( i find that i have sunburns on my lower arm - the shirt sleeves cover the upper arm. some time back, actually decades back, when i made a trip on my bike from chennai to tvm i had boasted that i have got a tan but within no time the burnt skin peeled off. ) and i used to be dead tired by the time i reached back to the house. last night i was really in the mood but too tired. but once the pbird shrieks woke me up in the early morning i had the time of my life and took a real leak.
the result is that at the moment i can manage to think of things other than the "flowers of flesh" ; right now i am in full agreement with the famous words of dr. kurian :
"oru oottayum, kurre pootayum"
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