Home is where the office is

I am now a resident member of IISER Pune.  I’ve been longing for this day ever since I first stepped into IISER Pune and saw the construction site of the faculty housing.  For the last two and a half years, I have looked at it wistfully while driving into campus every day and imagined the good life post-moving-in.

Just imagine the possibilities: I can walk to my office every day, work as late as I like without any safety concerns about returning at night, my father will worry about me a little less, I will not have to navigate painful Pune traffic every evening and my building residents will not ask me if I can tutor their children (!!) in Mathematics.  I can now enjoy life in two of India’s best campuses and so can Abhishek (although something tells me that his enjoyment will be mostly centered around the milk shakes at Shiv Sagar, our on-campus food joint).  Oh yes, one more thing: I will not have trouble receiving Amazon packages.

I have already written before about the smooth manner in which house allocation was done.

The move today went off without any major glitches.  The movers were polite and sincere: but the supervisor tried to fool me in many ways.  He had asked for a certain sum (higher than what he quoted to my colleagues) with the assurance that he will bring good packing material: but that did not happen. The electronic items were wrapped in bubble wrap and the kitchen utensils, including coffee maker and other fragile stuff were wrapped in newspaper (which I provided!) and brought in open plastic crates.  His justification: “the quality lies not in the packing material, but in the handling.” Later, the household luggage did not fit into the vehicle brought by him and the supervisor stayed back with the remaining stuff while I followed the vehicle to IISER.  The vehicle then returned for a second trip and the guy very cleverly extracted some extra money saying that local labourers had demanded “Mathadi.”  I knew he was lying (since this has not happened to anyone in my former residential society), but I was alone and completely dependent on these people for unpacking and unloading.

After unloading at IISER Pune, he told me that his boys would be unpacking only major items like furniture and I would have to do the rest myself.  I requested him to empty all the boxes and put the things in the appropriate rooms, and I can take care of the arrangement later.  He argued a little, but gave in.  Finally, he demanded an extra two thousand rupees as tax.  Since this was not in the original quotation, I refused to pay.  Another little argument, but he gave in.

This happens to me a lot: people assume that I am nice and can be fooled easily. (They are right occasionally:  I can’t believe I paid an extra three thousand rupees for a handful of bubble wrap.)

Nonetheless, by the end of the day, everything was in the apartment and in its proper place.  No glass items are broken, but I will only know in the next two days if there has been any damage to the electronic items.  His boys were certainly very sincere and did all the packing and unpacking as per my instructions.   They also did not damage any furniture. 

 My lesson from this is that if one really wants to be free of worries and wants finesse in the handling of items, it is safest to go with a reliable, big name mover (the movers who brought my items from Canada to Mohanpur and later to Pune gave me no cause at all to worry).  With local movers, one has to be really watchful as they will try to cut corners.  But, they do the job eventually and the end product is not much different from what a big mover would have done, at least for an intra city move!

During the unpacking, an agile, middle aged lady rang the doorbell and before I could respond, walked right into the house, unpacked some of the boxes and arranged many items in the kitchen and store room.  She is now my cook and domestic help, my very own Mrs Doubtfire.

Anyways, the reality is that I am on campus, tired, but very happy.   I wanted to take a long walk on my first evening here, but could not do so as my feet are hurting a lot from standing and carrying things all day (may be I need to make my strength training routine a little more intensive!)  I hope to enjoy a nice walk tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, here’s how I celebrated … on campus of course!

Finally, a picture of faculty housing as it looked at dinner time:

If I could survive the next two weeks..

The next two weeks are going to be a handful.

By Saturday, I have to finalize a paper and lecture notes for a series of lectures.  In between this week, I have to examine a PhD thesis viva voce (thankfully via Skype). On Sunday, I will travel to Bhubaneswar for an ATM School in which I am giving the above mentioned lectures.  The scary part is that temperature at BBN is on the wrong side of 40, but the good thing is that I will get to stay in my favourite guest house.

Immediately after returning, I have to move to my new apartment at IISER.  The idea of packing, moving and unpacking is a bit daunting.  Instead of a big brand, I have hired a local packer and mover this time and even though I have good feedback about this company from my colleagues, I am still worried about things breaking or getting lost.  What if the packers show up late? The apartment security does not allow moving out after a certain time.  What if they don’t pack the items properly and it starts raining? On top of that, the movers mention that some local goons may gather around the truck and won’t let it pass unless you give them some money (it is called “Mahtari” in local parlance).  What if I don’t get the apartment keys on time (I am working with very short deadlines here as I have to travel again for a few weeks immediately after the move)?  What if the movers misbehave and don’t unpack or reassemble the furniture? What if this? What if that? Even as I write this, I realize that half of my fears are unfounded.  Strangely I had no fear at all while moving from Mohanpur to Pune, which was a much longer commute than the upcoming 4 kilometer move!  Then of course, there was the big move from Canada to Mohanpur!

My colleagues who have already moved seem to be settling down well – in fact, our registrar was the first to move into campus housing and has already taken care of a lot of issues.  So, I don’t have too many concerns about what happens after moving. Our new apartment offers pipeline gas – that itself takes care of one major hassle, that of going to a gas agency for issuing cylinders.  The dining complex is nearby: so, no worries if the kitchen is not set up immediately. 

I will finally get to live on campus: something for which I have been waiting for a very, very long time [remembering a campus housing experience from another lifetime :) ].

Now, if only I could survive the next two weeks…..

A little house on campus

We were recently informed that our campus houses would be ready to move in very soon.  This is something for which I have been waiting for the last five years: to live in a real house in a real campus.  And what a house it is (going to be).  All of us, irrespective of seniority or rank (other than director), are going to get apartments of equal size: comfortable 3 BHK apartments with 3 balconies (and 3 bathrooms too!)The buildings are surrounded by IISER campus, NCL campus and the beautiful Panchvati hills. The apartments also have piped gas (so it's a huge relief to not have to wait for gas cylinders for weeks on end!)

Irrespective of the above benefits, what impressed me most was the smooth and transparent manner in which the house allotment was done.  A list was drawn up of all interested faculty, in order of their joining dates.  An email was then sent to all of us with a diagram describing the numbering and location (i.e. the direction which it faces) of each apartment.  Sample apartments facing each direction in both buildings were made accessible, so that we could go and choose where we would like to live.

The list was divided into two batches of about 40 each.  For each batch, each member knew their number and made a personal list of preferred apartments of the same number.  For example, someone who is number 12 in a batch would jot down 12 apartment numbers in order of preference.  Each faculty was called by the allotment committee one by one into an adjoining room (in the same order in which they were listed), where they would be asked for their preferences and get allotted the first available apartment.  The conversation with the allotment committee would typically last a minute and after allotment, one would go back to the faculty meeting room and write down their apartment number on the board (so that the colleagues after them would know which apartments were not available anymore).  After the allotment for the first batch was over, we were sent an email about which apartments were available for the second batch.  Thus, in two sittings, the allotment for about 80 people was done.

No personal questions, no undue pressure/influence and no hard feelings! Just a warm smile by our colleague Prof. Natu with a simple question, "Yes, which one do you want?" and an even bigger smile if your desired apartment was available.



I don't say this enough: I love IISER Pune.

Job is where the house is?

Today, I am in a mood to dwell upon a non-academic factor that I considered while applying to positions in India, namely, housing.

I wanted to be in a place that could offer on-campus housing.  I associated on-campus housing with safety and freedom from worries about commuting[1].  Of course, campus life at N1 cannot offer the facilities that the older campuses can offer (like a gym, grocery stores etc), but still, it is good to be located in the interior of a gated campus, away from the "thoroughfare" and the noise generated by heavy trucks at night.

At the time of my interview, I came to know that although N1 was not offering leased housing to its members, it had acquired a small number of some very old houses close to the academic buildings and renovated them.  Those of us who really wanted to live inside campus opted for it, even though it is a somewhat awkward arrangement.  My house is a mini-version of the kind of houses our grandparents lived in: it has two rooms, an open porch that doubles up as a dining space with a tiny kitchen and (here comes the best part) a courtyard (surrounded by walls but open at the top) with the bathroom across the courtyard[2].  The main entrance and the door that separates the courtyard from the dining space are both grilled doors.  Before moving in, I got the courtyard covered with asbestos sheets [3] and the grilled doors covered by nets.

To put it mildly, it is not the kind of house I would ideally choose to live in, but at that time, it was a better option than having to look for a house outside, given that I do not speak the local language.  Moreover, as I mentioned before, my excitement at joining N1 overcame all other concerns.  My father, a retired military officer, also told me stories of the kind of dwellings he had lived in and assured me that my house was a luxury.  He said, "you will grow to like it so much that you will not vacate it even when the house in the permanent campus is ready."

The house offers many advantages.  It has been renovated from an old house, is located in the remotest part of this housing complex and is surrounded by trees and greenery on all sides.  The advantages, therefore, are that childhood memories of my grandparents make me happy, there is absolutely no noise (not even that of neighbours watching TV), I have a beautiful view from my window, especially of the rising sun, and what's more, I enjoy mangoes fresh from trees in the summer and have a lot of space for cultivating a garden.

The disadvantage, however, is that precisely because of the location, I am occasionally welcomed back in the evening by rats, frogs and therefore (gasp) snakes.  After my first (and so far, only) encounter with a snake at home, the administration immediately arranged for night lights around the house and regular grass cutting.  The encounter itself was very funny.  It was a huge snake, about six feet long and was sitting in a corner.  I screamed and called the security guards. After they entered the house and assured me that it was non-poisonous, I started taking pictures and videos of it.

(My other encounters with snakes have been in the academic buildings.  Recently, we discovered a banded krait behind my office.  Our socially responsible and humane students promptly picked it up and released it in an isolated marsh.)

Ever since then, my house help spends a considerable portion of time everyday safeguarding the house from snakes, for example, by sprinkling carbolic acid in the courtyard.   Thanks to her diligence, my house has survived an entire monsoon season without a visit by snakes.

Although I don't foresee my father's prediction coming true, with generous help from our civil engineer and also because of the other advantages like easy commuting, I have been fairly comfortable in this house.  I have even made peace with the bathroom-in-the courtyard  issue.  Since I am happy professionally at N1, the house seems to add to my overall well being.

However, my feeling of contentment has been severely put to test by some recent developments.  Yesterday, N1 hosted a consortium, which had representatives from all the new-ones [4].  While socializing with the other representatives, I came to know about housing arrangements at their institutes. It turns out that while one of them has already moved to their permanent campus, including the faculty quarters, the others have arranged leased housing in complexes nearby.  From what I could understand, these are spacious and very comfortable houses (apparently, with three bedrooms) and not too far from their campuses.  After I heard this, I was too embarrassed to mention the housing situation at N1.  It did not help that when I entered my house that evening, I was greeted by a swarm of wasps.

Tired and sore and extremely upset, I started questioning my decision to join N1.
"Can I really stay here? Why am I torturing myself?"   I dozed off for the night thinking on these lines.

I was much calmer when I woke up today morning.  I enjoyed the sound of birds, the beautiful sunrise, fresh home-made parathas [5] and a pleasant bike ride to my office.  I am still aware of the housing disparities between N1 and the other new ones, but am certainly not entertaining any ideas of moving just on account of that!!  Sometimes, one tends to take matters more seriously than one should, I guess.  I mean, who changes jobs just to get a better house?

For now, I will turn to values that our grandparents taught us: contentment, patience and of course fearlessness (which will come in handy if that banded krait makes its way into my house).


 




[1] Comment overheard from a colleague: "it is hard to go to bed not knowing how you are going to get to campus the next morning."
[2] Before you squeal in horror, let me assure you that the bathrooms are themselves proper rooms and not open corners!
[3] I am a bit obsessed with safety issues.
[4] Yes, yes, I know that you know what I am talking about. But, I have now started enjoying the "new" names.  So, let's just stick with them, shall we?
[5] especially because they were made by someone else, my house help, one of the most special people in my life at N1.