A few square feet can make all the difference. My childhood was spent in the comfort of a spacious apartment in a prime location ignorant of the agonies of house hunting which most people often have to go through.
My first brush with this exciting adventure came when I was about to get married. My fiance was adamant that we shall buy our own apartment before we say “I do”. Hence we started a search for that little dream house – that perfect haven, our own little nook of happiness far away from this big bad world. However, our interactions with corrupt brokers and real estate sharks, shook us back into reality. It was not as romantic as it seemed. We came across big apartments and small ones, some stole our hearts and some our pockets. We realised we would have to budget our dreams. So on with Operation House Hunting!
Instead of chalking out wedding plans, we now started drafting out House Hunting strategies, singling out areas, asking around for the going rates and identifying reliable agencies in those areas . We became conversant with all the real estate lingo like square feet, carpet area, super-built, covered area et al. We could actually argue with the real estate gentry in their own language. Kudos to us !
Innumerable search parties and millions of negotiations later we finally stepped into our haven of delight. It was a beautiful corner flat, south facing (the essential Indian requirement and ideal definition of a good apartment) with a wonderful view of the green fields of an yet to develop township. We were finally done with it and had achieved our pre-requisite for tying the knot. So we got married.
My husband did’nt really bother to carry me over the threshold as there were a host of other things that he had to carry as we moved in almost immediately. Nevertheless , I was happy because we were finally living our little dream. We had struggled, haggled and quibbled sufficiently long and hard enough to acquire this 1000 square feet area which we could call our own.
A few square feet of space does indeed make a lot of difference.
