A Diary Entry Titled "502"

Since my parents are here now, I am relieved of the duty of dealing with him anymore. He, who came to my place today to do business with my folks today morning. But his arrival made me ponder upon a very recent development and realize how happy that new "thing" has made me.

When I first came here to study, I lived in the hostel for a year before moving out to a small flat very near the college. After a couple of months of staying alone, a friend moved in with me. As it turned out, it was a really bad decision, because what followed was a whole bunch of people making my flat into their haunt, a perennial watering hole of sorts where they would crash very night and whose burden I had to bear since the place was in my name with the owner staying right across the corridor. Needless to say, after many months of them raising hell, the contract was not renewed. In a desperate bid to find a roof over my head, I moved into a much bigger flat (which by the way is good for me since I was feeling quite cramped previously), but one that was quite far away from the only place I ought to have been concerned about and also quite out of the way in absolute terms since the only mode of conveyance if you did not happen to have a car or a bike of your own happened to be auto-rickshaws (or taxis, goes without saying).

Now I've been staying here for almost three years now, and I've grown quite attached to this place, mostly because there are loads of memories associated with it. But with the ever-escalating auto-rickshaw fares in New Bombay (meter down was at one point of time 13 rupees would you believe?) coupled with the fact that quite often (especially during submissions when I invariably forget some or the other subject-related stuff at home) I needed to make multiple trips to and fro and also the fact that very few restaurants were willing to deliver food and even if they did, they asked for a very high minimum order bill, I was, a few months back, actively on the lookout of another flat, which was almost as near to college as the previous one - that would have additionally meant that I was back in civilization. And I almost did seal a deal, but it fell through. Now that I look back, I'm glad.

All throughout their stay, my parents have been commenting about how convenient it is to live here - anything you need is right next door. Of course the things they refer to are common household items like groceries which, till the time I was here alone, I had nothing to do with - all I cared about was how fast I could get to college, and how convenient it was for me to get home after having roamed around all over Bombay, especially late at night. And since leaving my place meant a minimum expense of 50 bucks, quite often and particularly on weekends and holidays, I chose not to. Heck, even a round trip to college cost me that much, so you can imagine my daily expenditure!

But today, the landlord collected the monthly rent - and I felt happy that I'm still staying here and will in all probability continue doing so at least till the end of my time in this godforsaken college which is poised to consume a sixth year of my life beginning August and has given me nothing but grief, especially in the form of consecutive year drops due to attendance. I'll be getting up a bit earlier than usual when college re-opens, and will walk to the bus depot with the other students after college to the bus depot. In the process, I'm all set to save 44 rupees a day, plus I'll have the option of not forcing myself to hang around and walk all the place just to avoid going home. Because now, economic viability is accounted for.

Even though the local transport authorities (NMMT) had restarted a bus route (#23) which served my purpose well, with the advent of the new BEST bus route (#502, which has much more frequent, is cheaper, takes a much shorter and faster route to college, uses more comfortable buses and provides connectivity between the two satellite cities), I feel the need to thank BEST (and while I'm at it, request them to maintain the frequency).