Patel explained each and every clause in full detail. There were six tubelights. Four and a half fans, including a little one in the kitchen, two exhaust fans—one in each bathroom—and seventeen power sockets in the flat including three high capacity ones.

Patel is a psycho.

I nodded along, putting my initials under each page, till we came to the clauses on food and drink. First of all I was not supposed to cook non-vegetarian food in the house. Patel told me they were strict Jains. I assured him that I would not cook anything. Then I asked him if I could order non-veg food from a restaurant or a fast-food joint.

I SHOULD HAVE KEPT MY BIG STUPID MOUTH SHUT.

Patel went into the bedroom and emerged after a fifteen-minute long discussion with his entire family to say that was unacceptable. He told me that he would revise the contract later.

I was also, according to the contract, not allowed to consume alcohol in the house. Of course by this time I was so frustrated I would have agreed to anything.

Finally, after an hour and a half of explanations and clarifications, none of them asked for, I was given a single key dangling from what was once a key chain but now only the rusty ring remained.

I’ve never felt more relieved in my life.

There was much shaking of hands after that and then I had to drag my luggage back down again, past Patel’s Honda Accord, across the road and then wait for a cab. Bansal didn’t help. Instead, he told me that I was a very lucky man and that I would live in my flat very happily for many years. I wished he would just shut up and take me there.

We reached ten minutes ago. And Bansal spent those ten minutes showing me around the house and reminding me every seven seconds that he normally got his brokerage within three days of the tenant moving in. He said this was ‘his arrangement’.

I promised to give him a call soon to settle accounts and I started writing this as soon as he left.

I am so tired.

But I have a home.

8.13 p.m.

Dad called about the credit card bill. I told him that Dufresne would reimburse it all soon.

9 p.m.

Okay. Couple of minor issues with the flat.

First, only the fan in the kitchen works. The ones in the bedrooms don’t start and the one in the living room spins in reverse. I have NO idea … don’t ask.

So I can’t sit for more than five minutes in any room except the kitchen without sweating like a pig.

Also, one of the bathrooms does not have a toilet. There is just this hole in the ground with a pipe coming out of it. It totally freaks me out. I swear there was a toilet there when I came to check the place out last time. Hmm …

Also, there isn’t a single piece of furniture in the entire flat except for one mysterious wooden crate in one of the bedrooms with fourteen boxes of those vibrating slimming sauna belts you see on TV infomercials stacked up in a corner. Again … don’t ask. No idea. Very creepy. Like a Stephen King novel.