PG Blues - The state of paying guest accommodation in Bangalore

Bangalore is a haven for ambitious, lucky and energetic youngsters of India, and also for those who have no choice but to live here - workers, professionals, apprentices, interns, job-seekers and of course the omnipresent software engineers - these include the "lucky" ones who get into "dream" companies - be it core, IT or call centres (Over time, the differences between the last three diminish into nothing, leaving behind stress). Many of these youngsters, of course, develop into fate-fearing, energy-deficient, physically and psychologically affected, humble addicts.

In an era where ergonomic comforts, namesake health concerns and pseudo recreation at work only add to an employee's stress, the only place where he/she can hope to de-stress is his/her place of stay. Unfortunately, these de-stress sanctums leave their tenants in distress.

"PG", which used to expand to "Paying Guest" implying a person staying with a family and paying for their stay, has now become a term independent of its expanded form, implying a shared accommodation which may loosely termed as a hostel, swarming over every possible every area in Bangalore, and spreading into every possible real estate website on the WWW. Today, PGs in Bangalore serve as a refuge to thousands of bachelors, a reasonable number of married folk (if they've come alone, yeah) - and to those who visit them, either as a (relatively) permanent residence or an interstice while they find a house to move in to. As with career decisions, bachelors' decision to move out of their (dis?)comfort zones - PGs that is, is dictated largely by inertia , and some bachelors take a couple of years or even more, to move out of their PG.

So what's with all this gibberish, why can't they go for a house or a flatshare, you ask? Bangalore's house, or even room rent policy is a heartbreaking one for house-hunters, and negotiating over these is an inevitable ordeal for tenants. Invariably, house owners demand a mammoth ten-month-rent-amount as advance security deposit before making tenants sign an eleven month rental agreement, listing down conditions that turn out to be a nightmare. What's more, misguided clients are made bigger fools of, with self-sympathetic words of landlords (especially female ones -  ok, sorry). And it doesn't end there - before returning the security deposit, owners deduct an amount equalling one month's rent as painting charges - an amount that might escalate to two months' rent in case tenants wish to vacate within the agreement period. In some cases, vacating the place within the agreement period can resulting in forfeiting the entire security deposit. The owner, in short, is a dictator who can add rules to the rental agreement at his (more often her) own free will. With youngsters from the entire country flooding Bangalore, little choice remains but to concede defeat at the hands of landlord who, to do some justice to them, sometimes turn out to be nice people. Most often, though, they aren't, and lodgers go through a pitiable phase till they settle down in their new place. Oh, and more often that not, house-agents introduce potential tenants to landlords and, for their part, demand a one-month-rent amount as brokerage.

Such being the case, the concept of PGs comes as a welcome option for bachelors - and bachelorettes. People who choose PGs are often those who've joined their first company, or those who've come to find a job, and not-so rare cases include those who wish to capitalize on the proximity of the PG to their places of interest - usually their workplace, occasionally a person of interest's residence. Students and interns find PGs affordable and easy to vacate. Instability at work, short stays, attempts to save up and inability to, or inability to find time to cook, constitute other reasons.

A PG is usually located in an innocent looking building which may be a house or a part of it, one or more rooms on the terrace of a building (in this case, an asbestos sheet usually serves as a ceiling), one or more floors of an office building, or thoughtfully constructed underground rooms (no kidding). Occasionally, though, PGs have dedicated buildings. It is virtually impossible to generalize a PG's building, for there is far too much variety.

Inside, however, they converge to an indubitable pattern -  a typical PG consists of rooms (occasionally a single room) crammed with beds, with barely any space to walk between them, shelves or cupboards overflowing with clothes, shared toilets, and, if the landlord is thoughtful enough, a verandah or terrace for tenants to hang clothes to dry. In other cases, the room or corridor is equipped with a clothes line, either invested by the occupants or generously provided by the landlord. Rooms are usually shared, and are termed as two-sharing, three-sharing (no explanation needed, I'm sure) or single-sharing (sounds silly, I know). Restrooms are poorly maintained, owing to the fact that too many people (mis)use them - well, I'd rather not describe. Proprietors often hire maids for cleaning up the place, irrespective of which, the place remains filthy.

Cheap advertisements (computer printouts or pamphlets, basically) promising the banal list of facilities including unlimited WiFi, 24 Hours water supply (sometimes claiming hot water supply), televisions in each room, washing machine, "security", parking facility, mineral water among others, can be seen in almost every street in Bangalore. However, the degree to which these promises are kept, is one that can only be answered by the pitiable tenants. From my own experience, and from first accounts that I have heard, I may say boldly that over 50% of Bangalore's PGs don't provide at least half of the facilities promised.

A precipitous - why, even a planned visit to a men's PG would reveal the extent to which bachelors go in maintaining the filthiness of the place - with clothes, books, laptops and related components, mobile phones, shaving equipment, cigarette butts and empty liquor bottles strewn all around. Girls' PGs are relatively neater (so I'm told). This is more a consequence of frustration at staying in a not-so-nice place and abhorrence towards their landlord. Some PG landlords are not owners - they take a house or a part of a building on lease and then rent it out as a PG. Whether or not they are, their behaviour with tenants is deceitful and domineering to say the least. When the tenant signs up, they display their best hospitality - a feature which degrades down to annoyingly cheap behaviour in a matter of weeks. (These days nearly everyone speaks impeccable English, especially over phone and language is hardly a criterion to judge people on) Hidden charges, addition of extra cots (implying occupants), dismissal of kind maids, adding new rules to the rental "agreement", and more. In short, they make loopholes their way of life, giving dappy excuses and thrive on their clients' dearth of choices, not unlike HR and emolument staff in companies.  As a rule, they never provide proper rent receipts, and in addition to them not paying taxes, they forcibly make tax paying tenants draft false receipts to receive their deserved deductions. Lodgers' untidiness and marginal misbehaviour may, thus, be dismissed as a poor retaliation for the ordeals they are subjected to, on a daily basis. The relationship between the landlord and tenant easily compares with that between an employee and his manager - with grudge, despise and the like masked by forced smiles, pleasantries and politically acceptable talk.

At night, large queues would form in PGs offering food, where youngsters line up, anticipating the answer to the routine question - one that veteran PG dwellers would be only too aware of, while newer ones would need practice to find out: "Will it be leftovers or fresh food?" Munificent PGs that provide cooking space would have these queues near the stove, each volunteer waiting to have a go at it - while others would wait, expecting something - even a morsel, coming their way.

I have been brutally judgemental and as often in my articles, I have put forth my very biased opinion here, generalizing PGs possibly in an unjust manner, but I admit that when such an opinion is expressed, there is plenty of room for exceptions - but irrespective of the number of the latter, I choose to treat them only as exceptions here.  In the same breath, I mention explicitly that there are good PGs in Bangalore - staying in one of those myself (yes, for a change this isn't a personal vent-out), I would be a cruel person not to say so.

With many companies and opportunities in general opening up in other cities, there may seem to be heavy decentralization from Bangalore - this may reduce the rate at which Bangalore's population grows but not the magnitude (nor its increase) itself, and I feel that other cities will only adopt Bangalore's model (forgive my ignorance if it's been around for a while). I hope that these landlords are are less of greedy moneymaking shack-owners and such hostels turn out to be comfortable nests for India's ever-adjusting youth.. I can only hope..

Photo courtesy: distantdrumlin.wordpress.com