finding a house in bangalore was no easy feat. it took months of searching to find a house that met the specifications i was looking for, and the house i finally found was literally the last one we saw.

luckily for me, i had shonali to help. when i first called her in november to tell her i had accepted a job in bangalore and needed her help finding a place to live, she jumped at the opportunity. she began contacting brokers and visiting houses to get an idea of what was available. and we also began making a list of the things i was looking for:

• well-ventilated and with good natural light
• bus accessibility
• something with a balcony or access to a terrace; in other words, some kind of outdoor space
• a decently-sized kitchen with ventilation [you wouldn’t believe how difficult this is to find]
• a good bathroom equipped with a health faucet; bonus points for a hot water geyser already in place
• nothing on the ground floor, both for safety and because ground floor houses tend to have windows that open to walls. it’s a little depressing

armed with this list, shonu set out in mid-november, diligently taking notes and pictures at every stop and passing them along to me. we realized early on that it was too soon to be looking for houses for january, as owners are looking for people to make quick decisions about whether or not they want to take a place. immediate occupancy is the lay of the land.

we took up the hunt again once i reached town in january, but the initial crop of houses we saw were nothing to write home about. most did not meet even two of my basic requirements, and the one house that was nice had an owner who only wanted to rent to a family. i finally found a studio that was alright but had a really nice owner, and then i found out i would be going to hyderabad for two months.

back to square one.

when i finally returned for good in mid-march, shonali and i were on a mission: find a house that i could finalize and move into the first weekend in april. over two weekends we probably saw 30 places in richmond town, shantinagar, langford town, and victoria layout. it took a while for the broker to figure out exactly what i was looking for, but we finally struck jackpot one saturday evening as we were all running out of steam. and as soon as we walked in, i knew it was the best house we had seen. it was freshly painted and move-in ready, and it boasted a beautiful storeroom off the kitchen and loads of built-in storage. and it ticked off all those things on my list.

i was lucky enough that i knew i could crash at shonali’s place until i found the right house for myself, which meant there was less pressure on me than there is on most. i was also lucky because i had shonali to tirelessly run interference with the brokers and to rearrange her own schedule to run me around town and help me look. but it was still an exhausting process.

i had only ever had to hunt for a place to live once before, when i was moving back to the states for grad school. and i got ridiculously lucky, because within a few times of browsing craigslist, i found the house i eventually moved into. taylor and angela were both so friendly, and although it was march or april when i first contacted her, taylor was so sweet about waiting until i returned in july to make any other decisions about roommates. i know how lucky i was in that situation, and i was bracing myself for a much longer process this time around.

i am so thankful that this process is over and that i finally have a place for myself. my next goals are to procure some furniture and to begin my search for a flatmate, but in the meantime i am going to bask in the glory of a major task accomplished.

xx

[coming soon: more pictures, just as soon as i get it a little more set up!]