Flat hunting: The one with the Broker Wars

There’s been mayhem, stress, upsets and danger in the hunt for a flat. It’s been a better drama than an Eastenders Christmas Omnibus with more memorable storylines. But perhaps that’s an easy accomplishment.

N & I decided to share a flat as we’d shared a room for four weeks through the training and orientation period. No mean feat given that rooms were maybe 10 x 10 feet with a small en-suite bathroom. Sharing was a sensible move as one bed flats in Delhi are hard to come by and with an allowance of 8,000 rupees each per month (about £106 GBP) this doesn’t get you much here.

Potential VSOers should not be put off. Countries vary and even in India the situation of fellow volunteers in other parts of India are completely different. Delhi just happens to be more difficult. Much more difficult. We’d decided to look around ourselves for various reasons but in Delhi two Western women usually means an inflation of the rental price by about a third.

We went through many brokers. We’ve seen flats that felt like terrorist cells. We’ve been called so many times by one broker it was nearly harassment. Another we could not communicate with, our Hindi being so limited at this stage. One admitted he struggled finding anything in our price range as bigger flats were built for families who in Indian culture have less privacy. Two single Westerners like having doors on the bedrooms and not having to walk through them to get to the main bathroom. Flats just weren’t built for us.

But finally about a week into the search we found a place. A week sounds like nothing in Western time but you don’t see pictures or get to read blurb on a property. You get in an auto and go to see the place. We’d visited 16 in a week, 10 in the first weekend alone. ‘The Taj’ as we named her was the one. On our second visit we were invited to have chai with the landlord and his son. We chatted, were told we would be treated like his daughters and we negotiated a price. Two days later we hadn’t sorted out the finer details between our NGOs, VSO and us. The Taj went to someone else. So much for being family. Gutted we had to haul ourselves around Delhi once more.

We got into situations we shouldn’t have for the sake of getting somewhere quickly. Neither of us wanted to carry on living in hostels having been in them for four weeks. We got on the back of brokers’ motorbikes without helmets as we were repeatedly told, ‘another flat is around the corner, Madam’. Calling brokers from the internet and having to meet them at properties. The worst situation was the day of ‘broker wars’. One day a younger broker had shown us two flats. Neither suitable he offered to show us more the next day. He turned up with a friend in a car who thought he was Mr. Smooth. N got offered an invite to a Hindi wedding and a jacuzzi. The next day they repeatedly called us. We were with another broker and they showed up to try and get us to see the same flat. Whilst sitting in our broker’s car, we saw the younger brokers drive by with their tinted windows. They returned and Mr. Smooth got out. All pointed white leather shoes and black velvet jacket, on the pull. I cringed thinking an argument was about to occur. Whose patch were we on anyway? Our older broker got out shook their hands and introduced himself. We had to excuse ourselves and lied that we were about to sign a deal. All because we were Western women and the young broker had obviously got his friend along for some fun.

Contrary to the Hollywood stereotype that has permeated some of India, we’re not easy. We didn’t want to go to a club, just a flat. After all the drama, there’s no Eastenders ending thankfully. We got lucky and found a flat. We had more drama and nearly lost this one too. Eventually we got the deal done and moved in today. It’s Christmas Eve and after two weeks of nightmare stress; it’s been the best Christmas present I could have had this year.

Sign 4

They say try not to see anyone from home in the first few months of your placement as it can make you feel homesick. I didn’t have much choice as I attended the Sign 4 conference held in New Delhi from the 17-19/12/09. Needless to say, I didn’t feel homesick but rather it was great to see some familiar faces and hear about people’s experiences of India. I’m extremely grateful to two British colleagues who I’d texted beforehand and they’d brought over some supplies for me. Thank you both (you know who you are)! As an aside, these supplies were Marmite, Nutella and red wine. You can get anything you want in New Delhi but it comes with a price. A small jar of Marmite comes in at a fiver. To put it into perspective, this is more than a day’s allowance. Eating local wherever you are is always going to be cheaper.

The conference didn’t directly relate to my placement as it was on Sign Language linguistics but as it turned out it gave me an overview of the development of interpreting in India from the perspective of a University and a chance to meet some Deaf people from India. I could also practice my International Sign Language and meet Deaf people from around the world. There are many reasons I am doing a VSO placement. One of them is that I’d been after some international experience for a while. There are a few conferences around the world you can attend in linguistics, Sign Language, and both Deaf and interpreting associations. This felt like the start of that international experience except I was there as a new resident of India to work with the community here for the next year.

How good it was to see an International conference for Deaf people held on Indian soil. There is much to do here for Deaf people and any international events can only strengthen the case for government to set up the post of an Interpreter for Deaf people. Until it does it will be unlikely that people will want to work as interpreters with no formal employment and no recompense for that role. The government has said it will recognise the job when there are more interpreters. The chicken and the egg? It seems so. I hope that any work I can do out here can play some part in getting the egg hatched.

World Disability Day 2009

Some countries call it the International Day of People with Disabilities. Others the World Disability Day (WDD) as it is named in India. Whatever the label, with 70 million disabled people in India it is a day that needs celebration. A day that asks politicians to sit up and take notice. A day for disabled people to raise awareness and to champion their cause.

WDD has been held for the last 3 years at India Gate, under its imposing arch, far bigger than the Arc d’triomphe or Marble Arch. India currently has the People with Disabilities Act (1995). An act that disabled people and organisations say is weak. It follows the medical model of disability which says that disability is something to be treated. It does not address fully what society can or should do for disabled people or what their rights are in terms of education, health and access.

Despite this seemingly weak stance India ratified the UN Convention of Rights for Disabled People (UNCRPD) on 1st October 2007. It was the sixth country to do so but so far it is a piece of tokenism. Little has happened since. The underlying theme of WDD in India this December was to refuse amendments to the current law and create a stronger rights-based law, empowering disabled people to live fulfilled lives as equal citizens.

With regard to Deaf people the current law mentions Deaf people a handful of times including once in a definition, twice in the names of organisations that serve the Deaf community. There is not much else. It is as useful as a jumper on a hot summer day in Delhi.

It was gratifying to be part of the day, to see people out in force. With 5,000 people present it occurred to me that the many people attending seemed to be Deaf. I asked someone where everyone else was. I was informed transport is so inaccessible here that many who would have wanted to attend would not have been able to do so. Many NGOs do not have spare funds to put on transport to solve this issue. Without this, without disabled people turning up at events in force there is less likelihood of politicians seeing the changes that are necessary.

Perhaps enough will be done by the disabled people’s movement as a whole and by pressure from NGOs and external countries to get India's politicians to catch up. Perhaps there will be funding and transport for people to attend. Perhaps media efforts will be enough to raise the profile of disabled people in India. What I saw today was some incredibly passionate and committed people. A feeling of disappointment at the past but hope for the future. People had come from as far away as Orissa and Pune to attend. We're talking over 24 hours spent on a train to be there.

The UN’s message for WDD was ‘realising the Millennium Development Goals for all. These goals were set out by the UN to be achieved by 2015. They include providing a universal education for all and eradicating poverty and hunger. With disabled people often being the poorest in society due to a lack of access and exclusion from society, India has a lot of work to do over the next six years.

YouTube clip online now.