The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : There are the caring ones as well as the nosey ones

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 15, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

There are the caring ones as well as the nosey ones

Sudipto Mondal

Bangalore: “My father does not ask me as many questions about my whereabouts as my landlord does,” laments Chinjagasthari, a student in her late teens who lives as a paying guest near Electronics City. Her resentment is echoed by her friend Vaishnavi, also a paying guest and who lives in the other end of the city in Jeevanbima Nagar. “There are just too many restrictions in a PG… One of my previous landlords even kept a tab on what I wore and who dropped me home,” she revealed.

There are various types of PG accommodations in the city. Like in every other sphere of life, owners also pick and choose their PGs based on gender, region, religion, marital status, occupation and sometimes even caste. Some owners do not allow call centre employees to stay, others are guarded against undergraduate and foreign students.

People living as PGs have to ritually negotiate the cultural prejudices of the owners, like Sundar, who just shifted into the city from Hyderabad and is a junior research scholar with the city’s Centre for the Study of Culture and Society. “Tilak Nagar and Jayanagar 4th Block are very close to my institute. But I found it tough to find an accommodation. In Tilak Nagar, I was refused because I did not belong to the dominant community. In Jayanagar, I was refused because I did not belong to the dominant caste. The owners in Jayanagar and Basavanagudi did not want to take me in as I am a non-vegetarian.”

There are some irrefutable advantages of living as a paying guest, argues Renji, who lives in an accommodation meant for only Malayalis: “The food is just like how my mother cooked it back home,” he says happily. His roommate Jacob agrees and adds: “We are all from the same place we understand each other better… there are very few conflicts… and in an alien city we need to remain with people who understand us best.”

Aurobind Daw from Kolkata is visiting his daughter, a final year B.A student at the Garden City College. “The owner of the PG accommodation has done a lot for my daughter, Nibedita. He even keeps track of her academics and regularly updates me on her progress. He is like family to me,” he says. His daughter says: “Krishnan uncle (the owner) is just like a father to me.”

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