Story of finding 437

It was early 2002 and I had just moved back to Delhi from Chandigarh to start working with "Legato Systems". At that time, Avinash had rented a two room apartment in Malviya Nagar, a typical rail bogey apartment with no windows. Once I was back, we were pretty sure that we would want to move back to Noida so we started looking for a accommodation, aka house hunting.

Typically we would gather a list from our resources and would call them up or visit the landlords on Saturday/Sunday and then would weigh the decision to take/not-take on certain factors like rent per month, location of the flat, how far it is from bus stop, independence in terms of acces, state of the flat and so on.

Ravi was still not working and the rent was initially shared between me and Avinash, the two so called earners. We had decided to take something which is not more then 6K a month, at that price one would get a very decent 3 bed-room apartment, enough for three of us (or even four, if Tewari joins us).

Avinash met Brajesh (I hope I have the name correct) first and he was sort of impressed with the flat as well as with the person. Brajesh came out as a frank, not so old, modern thinker guy who would be easy to get with. This flat was a duplex and we have never stayed in one so there was this novelty factor as well. It was fairly bug with a room, kitchen and lounge on level 1 and two bed rooms on level 2. The only hitch was the rent which was 7500. It was not really beyond what we could afford but was much more then what two bachelors will spend. Normally a 3 bed-roomer would have as many 5 bachelors living together, squaring rent at the end of the month.

So we thought and discussed and decided that the house deserves Rs 7K for sure. That leaves Rs 500 and we attributed that Rs 500 to the land lords, we somehow thought that they deserve an extra Rs 500 :)

and we moved in.