I’m not sure how it happened, but I’m renting a room in New Delhi. Well, actually, I know how it happened. I saw a few places, got invited to live in a couple, got rejected by one, and finally moved my suitcase to my new home.
Arjun Nagar is a neighborhood of narrow roads (”gullies”) with multi-story buildings towering over them. It’s in South Delhi, just in the shadow of nearby wealthy Green Park. On my side of the street? 7500 rupees ($200 USD) a month gets you a smallish room in a shared flat. A block away? The prices go up — double.
Housemate #1 is Emelia from Finland. She works for the, you guessed it, Finnish Embassy. Housemate #2? Nathan, the Brit who works for the Indian travel company.
So that means that I have to be extra diligent to practice my Hindi. Luckily, Santi the Assamese maid, gives me some practice. And our landlord, an older Punjabi Sikh man, lives in the flat next door. So my conversational Hindi continues in fits and starts. A mis-conjugated verb here. An improper oblique pronoun there.
And the rest of the time? It’s just me and Nathan’s computer, doing internet searches for NGO jobs.
Now that I’m paying rent, I’ve decided to get a job.
