We have a home at last!!!

I am sitting here at home…at last!!! What a drama it has been to find a place to rent. But in the end we have ended up with a great 2 bedroom flat perfectly suited to our needs. We have a large marble floored lounge room, which is perfect for dance, and Sandeep’s dance student Santosh, who found this place for us, is so exited that he can now come for classes close to his home. Sandeep is giving full priority to Freya’s practise, and anyway the boys are used to getting their lesson at 2 or 3 am in the morning, whenever Sandeep has time. This area is on the eastern outskirts of Hyderabad, about 10 kilometres from the old city. To get here we have to take a turn off the main road to Vijaywada (and Kuchipudi), and drive 2 kilometers along narrow bustling roads. This is one of the best things about the place – that it is not so easy to find, giving us no disturbance from dance as Sandeep so happily puts it.

The rent is $130 per month, which we think is pretty good… You cannot imagine how many homes and flats we have looked at, and always there were issues such as why are these foreigners here – is it illegal to house them? And in many places the landlord only wanted a family and strictly no bachelors. I was really starting to give up hope, and our plan to evacuate to Sandeep’s hometown was looking more and more likely. But we all felt that in order to really get creative with dance, we needed our own independent place, even though Harshid’s family have been extremely sweet, and it has been such a pleasure staying with them and getting to know them.

Sandeep saw a wonderful apartment for $260 per month, and the owners were really keen to give it to him. So we went to meet with them, as they wanted to give Sandeep a final grilling. This family lived in the cleanest apartment I think I have ever seen in India. The tiled floor glistened and the fragrance in the home was floral and beautiful. The wife was really lovely, and she asked us with great interest as to what Freya and I were doing here. It gradually came out that they really would not accept anyone who could not commit to staying for two years. Our hopes were a bit dashed, when Sandeep spotted a great music CD on their mantle piece. This got us talking about music, and before long we discovered that this lady who was encouraging us to take interest in India music, was none other than the cousin of a famous South Indian singer Nityashree Mahadevan, whose singing Guy really loves. We told them we were big fans, and the meeting ended on a high note. Sandeep was happy as he had encoded on his Mac their CD of classical music set to modern rhythms.

The following day we headed to the other side of town, to look at some promising one and two bedroom apartments ( we could have the whole floor with both apartments), which were just built, but had not yet had fans and the ever popular florescent lights installed. There was even a view to greenery and palm trees lining the drainage canal which although probably mosquito infested looked very inviting. To our amazement the owners said that we could have it! I was so relieved as we met with the very friendly owners, who were very devoted followers of the saint Sai Baba of Shirdi. So we settled on the flat and drove off, but down the road is where we stumbled on the to let sign at these apartments. The flat was not new, but had the biggest living space of any apartment we had looked at as well as the best floor, and for us this was the main priority. The very chatty neighbor, who is a close friend of the owner, almost begged us to stay, after he discovered that we were dancers and singers. He offered for them to have the walls whitewashed (i.e. painted) but we said we will take it as it is, and we want to occupy from tomorrow. In the Hindu calendar February 1 was particularly favorable for moving, especially in the afternoon, so this is when we finally arrived here at our new home. I can’t give you an exact address as we really do not have a clue exactly where we are in the neighborhood.

After moving the first car load of our luggage we all went shopping for all important household items and foodstuffs. Hyderabad has two supermarket chains, where you can get most things. We stocked up heavily on pasta and pasta sauce, and bought stainless steel containers for grains and spices. We also aquired some lovely terracotta teacups, a dinnerservice and a huge container of drinking water, which can be attached to Sandeeps dispenser. Sandeep is very good when it comes to setting up a home, and really he had the whole thing under control. Now we just need a 2-burner gas stove and a gas connection, which you get on subscription- and that is the involved part. Meanwhile Sandeep has a one burner camping stove, which we can cook simply on. Sandeep went with Santosh and Srikath to the vegetable market, while Freya and I settled in, and they came back with kiwi fruits, beautiful tomatoes, fresh baby corn, and best of all tow baby coss lettuces, which I just can’t wait to make into a fresh green salad tonight.

This morning Freya had her first dance class, learning the first four stanzas of a beautiful piece in Sanskrit Mahalaxmi Astakam, which is going to be a very beautiful dance piece. It is about the sweetness and also fierce nature of the goddess as She destroys our foes- very dramatic and exiting. We were told that power is usually out in this area from 8-10 am and also 2-4 pm in the afternoon, but this morning power was off from 7-11.30 am…our nosey neighbor told us that they were doing some repair work to the lines, and so hopefully this is the case, and it will be more reliable tomorrow. At 1 pm our internet guys came to install our internet connection – yes OUR internet connection!!! Amazing the technology… they arrived with a very long cable, poked a hole in the flyscreen, then one guy climbed onto the roof to get the cable down to the street. Across the street is the powerpole with the connection, and so they quickly hooked it up over there, and gave us plenty of cable to move around the flat with. Then the power went off again, and now I am sitting here waiting for them to return to give us the final connection…

Gosh – thanks to a late night call to Guy just we are now online here at home – whenever we have power that is! So please email or Skype us!!! Just remember we are currently 5 1/2 hours behind, and will not be online between 7-10 am and 2-4 pm our time.

Better post this to everyone right now. Love from all of us here in Hyderabad.