My stint at Deutschland - Chapter 4

Its now last week of April and I should have to search for a new house. Next month two more of my colleagues were coming, so I decided to share an accomodation for a change and got a pointer from an agency called Schwaben Stern, promoted by Frau Carmen Maier. The house was in Echterdingen Leinfelden, in the suburbs, near Stuttgart Flughafen or airport, the address being Goldaecker strasse no. 1. It was with some difficulty that I finally located the Goldaecker strasse. The bus no. 72 from Echterdingen station dropped me at the bus stop from where it was another quarter of a mile walk. The landlord was Signor Franko Pala, an Italian working in Lufthansa. He was fluent in English, with a goati and specs and we hit on instantly. The rooms were nice, clean and tidy and there was no problem in signing off a 6 months contract.

However once myself and my colleagues Shailendu and later Ashish Malik settled down, we had the first signs of troubles. The landlord often use to come to apartment in our absence and also presence, without prior appointment. Being bachelors, working 80 hours a week and then coming back home after travelling for 1 hour and cooking a meal, did'nt leave any of us much time to clean the house daily and whenever our landlord came, he was heartbroken by seeing his dear apartment rooms, esp. kitchen, in a state of perpetual mess. We assured him that we would clean it every fortnight, or even every week, but to no avail. I was away in Utrecht for most of the time and my colleagues were bearing the brunt. He demanded another 320 Euro per month from us for a professional cleaning service every week, which we were under no obligation to consent to as per contract. Upon his insistence and since the matters were going too far, we had to request Schwaben Stern to break the contract. Frau Maier very kindly understood our position and agreed for a break up and we are ever debtful to her on the same.

So house hunting time again, in the month of June when flowers are blooming all around, clear skies and beautiful weather makes Europe look like the paradise on earth. We got a house at Mittelstrasse 15 in Degerloch, at a cost of 1500 Euro which was to be borne by 4 of us together. We could stay in this rather expensive fashion (like four rabbits in a hole paying a large rent for that hole) for about a month. In the meanwhile I was supposed to relocate to Milton Keyenes near London, and my colleagues switched home to a more convenient location. The only significant event in this house was our breaking a small part of a window and having to pay 300 Euro as a penalty for the same.

My Milton Keyenes did not work out, I almost betrayed my managers and decided to stay back in Stuttgart. The decision was a well thought out one, however not a properly executed one and hence caused some heartburn. The fact that I would be staying back in Stuttgart so gladdened me that I ignored those minor hiccups. Moreover Helmut fuiously backed me and even went to his boss Lutz to retain me in Stuttgart (lucky to have such a boss/client).

In the meanwhile I also had to travel back to India for a week. My dad had passed away the previous year and it was his death annversary related religious ceremony that I had to attend, come what may. I got my tickets booked from Mr. Sen of Asia Kultur Tours in Stuttgart and as a consequence got Air India tickets. Flights were not bad. In Mumbai airport I had to pay 5 Euro to customs as a bribe(my fault actually, did not know that a digital camera was exempt from duty).

On coming back I had to shift temporarily into an accomodation near Vaihingen, courtesy Night and Day, but from where I was again driven out, (and u've guessed it right) again on grounds on cleanliness. This time Night and Day was not so friendly and sent me a nasty stinker, refusing to provide any more accomodation. Frau Maier arranged for an alternate which I gladly accepted. I was supposed to shift to my new accomodation on Saturday after flying back from UK on Friday. Myself and my colleague Prem Sagar Challa were travelling together. The trip is memorable for a variety of reasons - 1) When I was about to open my notebook to deliver a presentation in front of a room full of British clients, Kishore Kumar's song began to emanate from it loud and clear, startling even the bravest British minds. Looks like my junior colleagues on the previous day were listening to music on my laptop and they neither closed the winamp, nor shut the laptop down. I somehow mumbled an "execuse me" and literally ran straight towards the garden for shutting down the laptop as in the hurry I was not able to to do even that 2) While returning we missed our Birtish Airways flight by a whisker, courtesy a traffic jam on the highway. So had to put up in a Sheraton near Heathrow (overpriced at 188 GBP) and shared a room with my colleague as we were running out of our allowances 3) On returning to Stuttgart on Saturday morning, near Prem's house, we almost lost our laptops. The lady taxi driver was about to start oblivious of the fact that our laptops were still inside. We could barely stop her after running behind the taxi for some distance and she was very apologetic 4) On the same day I was supposed to withdraw money for paying rent in advance to my future landlady and was supposed to meet her at 1 PM in her house, but found that all Deutsche Bank ATMs were down owing to some server problems. The Italian taxi driver who roamed around with me for sometime in search of ATMs ultimately threw his hands up and I payed my last penny for the taxi fare and headed towards Koenigstrasse for spending the day with my suitcases and bags and couple of books. My other belongings were with my colleagues and they were not at home and they had put up a polite notice on their door requesting me not to enter (even though I had a spare key) because they were paying their landlord for three persons (themselves) and I was the fourth guy. The landlord somehow had a doubt that a fourth person was staying with them (myself, I had piled on for a couple of days, being driven out from my own house), and was trying to get hold of that fact to demand more money. An entry with a spare key would be like giving oneself away altogether, so did not dare risk it. However I enjoyed spending 4 hours in Koenigstrasse, sitting on the green grass and reading books and leisurely watching people.

In the evening things turned out to be better. I could withdraw money, come to the new place in Echterdingen, could locate it with the help of a helpful German couple who were on a evening walk, meet my landlady Frau Inge Kremmer, after waiting for some time in front of her house (the best landlady one could ever have, vide my musings on "landlady" to get the details) and checked in to my new accomodation at Heinzelinweg 1.

What happened next? Thats a new chapter.