The broker was an old man. I wonder where he is now.
The city was a stranger and behaving like it too. I was reluctant to give in too soon too.
But I had to rent an apartment, the need was almost desperate. So I went house hunting almost every other day.
There was this one apartment, the broker took me to. The time was early morning. The January sun was bright, the sky was absolutely clear with only a scanty scattered clouds.
This was one of those old apartment buildings - which aren't as showy or exorbitantly tall like the buildings coming up these days. But it was well maintained and almost hidden.
Once I entered from the front gate, I was surprised to see that there were almost half a dozen buildings - all built up to the third or fourth floor and each building must have had like 6-8 houses. Some of the apartments were duplexes. People who lived there must have settled there for life. Except tenants who came and left.
I started pacing up and down the narrow streets, lined with trees on both sides. These trees were lush and wild. There was no design. Clearly, the gardener had let her ideas flow.
It started feeling hotter, or perhaps I was wearing a jacket. Perhaps, I was worried I would get late for work. The broker who was almost twenty minutes late, showed up on his moped.
We went to check out one of the one-bedrooms on the ground floor. Sunlight wafted into the living room. A young mother sat rocking her newborn child. The father was gulping down his breakfast and rolling up his socks, in an almost frantic hurry. The broker asked permission to show me around the house.
Everybody smiled at everybody.
I tiptoed into the kitchen, following the young mother. I saw how she had set up shop. The little idols of her gods sat in the kitchen shelf. The air was a mix of incense and freshly cooked breakfast. The shelves beneath the stove were empty. I stood there for a minute silently comparing whether all my stuff would fit. I couldn't decide so fast and had to walk out.
She took us to the bedroom next. There was hardly any space around the bed. The broker started on how spacious the living room was and the small bedroom would not be a problem. A small window opened to the outside. I inquired about storage space.
The baby wailed, perhaps upon seeing the father leave. The mother rushed to the child.
We left. The broker called me a few times. I just couldn't make my mind up and continued seeing other houses.
Until I found another building, a little further away, and a neat little flat on its first floor.
Someone who lived on the third floor there, always cooked noodles in the afternoon. The corridor would overwhelmingly smell of soupy and tangy noodles when I would be on my way up the stairs to the terrace, almost everyday.
Some days, I would wonder if it would be okay if I knocked on all doors to find out who was cooking what. Although I never came around to it, I was pretty damn close.
When I was a young girl, and would watch cartoons in the afternoon after school, my mother would make for me noodles of that precise flavor and I would eat them straight off the pan, licking it clean.