Cooking in the Quarters

I live in a transit quarters run by my company in Pune. It is a 3BHK apartment in a large complex called Empire Estate in Chinchwad, Pune. This is one of the many quarters run by the company in Pune, with probably a hundred in the country. To accommodate executives who are traveling on business or for people who get transferred, and yet are to settle down in their new place, like me. These properties are owned by the top management who lease out such properties to the company. It’s an old boys club. Every ex-CEO will have a thing leased out to the company. However, corporate governance is not what I am thinking of now.

The transit quarters are an eco system of their own. I have been in the quarters in Zaheerabad, Worli, Khar, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai. You will find all sorts of people camping there for the night.

There will be a very old manager, Mahindra for life sorts. Then there will be the new joinee. There will be one protagonist like me. Everyone hates these places, which resemble a temple chatram or a common camping ground like a sarai, where people stay out of necessity. One can see the irritation of all people around, at the white walls, the medimix soap, and the Bajaj almond drops hair oil.

Everyone staying here, including myself, want to stay in a neat hotel, with variety in food. But the company is cutting costs or is being economical.

There have been instances when junior people are asked to leave just because some one more high or important in the company is coming in, and room has to be made for him. It is just irritating to have to pack up at odd times. It happened to me once in 2007, and I vowed never to walk into a company quarters again. Now, I am here again, and the experience has not sweetened much.

The same bland food. One would think the Mahindra transit quarters throughout India have a common menu. Roti, dhal, 2 subji’s, rice & curd. I have been in this place for a month, I have not tasted anything else, not even once. It doesn’t matter which part of the country you are in. The menu is the same.

One Sunday last month, when I was alone here, I decided to cook for myself. I could manage with a couple of south Indian dishes. But the caretakers here took it as a big insult, and would not let me into the kitchen. I tried coercive methods, then sometime later I appealed on compassionate grounds. They decided to make me dosas for dinner, and made me such dosas that I never repeated my mischief again.

I think they have been instructed not to entertain guests cooking for themselves just to make people leave sooner. If I am able to cook to my own taste once in a week, I would be pretty contented to live here, and the company would not want that. So it’s the same atta everyday, so people run out due to the monotony.

What would I not do to have rice mixed in puli kolambu/pulusu. Then curd rice, with a fried fish.

The caretakers are 2 teenagers from Gorakhpur in UP. There are 2 boys, cooking, keeping and sleeping in the house. They are in contract, with a recruitment company that files in boys from the village to work in such places. They can’t speak English or the local language. They are very respecting, decent and well behaved. They have been groomed to provide equal service all across India. Any Mahindra guest house in the country will have someone from Gorakhpur for sure. I don’t know how the connection came about or why.