My day started much earlier than usual – I woke up at 4am as the alarm shrieked out loud at that hour. I had to  get to the office much earlier than usual but the office being in the next district, there was no way that I could have reached at the time that I wanted to. I was out of my apartment by 5:40 am and missed the bus that I was hoping to catch. So I had to wait for a long time in the dark and it was almost completely light when I finally got a bus to Aluva.

Once I reached Aluva it was a search for a bus headed to the Thrissur area so that I could rush to my office. I didn’t find any and after 10 minutes, I saw a low floor bus headed to Angamaly and I thought that I’d catch a bus to Thrissur from the Angamaly bus station. As the bus left the station, I was the only passenger!! The whole bus for just me? Then I heard the bus conductor and the driver having an argument, which made me a little uncomfortable. The conductor approached me and asked me where I wanted to alight. I handed him a Rs.100 note and asked for a ticket to the Angamaly bus station – which is only Rs.14 as charge.  The conductor spoke to me rudely and said that he didn’t have change to give me for that. I fished in my wallet and found a 10 rupee note and a damaged Rs.5 note. He took those and gave me back a buck as my change.

The bus driver still continued to speak loudly about the fact that there no passengers on their bus and that they might have to cancel this bus & reduce trips. The driver then called out to him and told him to stop bothering me and that they both should speak face to face if there was a problem. The conductor left my side and went to the front of the bus where they both still argued for a while longer. At Athani (half way through) one more passenger got on and two stops later 2 more people got on. The whole trip just 4 of us!! What a waste and the stupid driver just drove at his own slow pace without a bother in the world.

Anyways funny & stupid thing regarding my search for a place to rent. A guy who knows my dad told me about this 2 bedroom flat in Athani, in a 3 story building, right next to bus stop. He had recommended me to get the place and could I go there this afternoon and speak to the owner, see the place and then decide if I wanted to rent it? I was happy to and we decided on 5:15 pm as the meeting time. Well the person wasn’t there to meet us and so we had to wait for sometime and then they took us to this…..house! A fucking stupid house, painted a dull yellow. The 2 bedroom flat was the second floor of a 2 story house!!! From a 3 story apartment building it was now a house. My father’s acquaintance was now embarrassed that he had asked me to come down. And the owner has already rented the place out to someone just the previous day!!! What a moron! A waste of my time.

So I asked him to see if there were any other places in my budget range and went on my way. On Saturday I am meeting with a house owner in Chalakudy. This guy has some major conditions – they are overtly religious, they are vegetarians and they live near a temple and so I 1) I have to be a Hindu & preferably  of the Nair-Menon caste (I am or rather my family is) b) cannot eat non-vegetarian food in the house and cannot eat meat that is cooked elsewhere and brought to their home either c) I cannot keep alcohol in the house either. I can ofcourse eat meat outside and come into the house and I guess I can drink and come back into their house. I will be checking with them on Saturday!!! Is this for renting their house or marrying their daughter? I’m a total opposite of the kind of ideal tenant that they are looking for – I booze, I eat meat and I do not believe in their fake gods.

I wonder what they plan to do to ensure that I am following their rules – check my stool and urine for meat and alcohol or give me a breath analyzer test at random intervals??