Flat Hunting (1)

Contents Warning: This is a humourless post because I have currently lost my sense of humour. Temporarily I hope.

I have been hunting for more permanent accommodation for a number of days now and it is mentally exhausting. Where to live is consuming the most brain juice. I work in Navi Mumbai and the best analogy I have come up with to help you all understand my challenges is that Navi Mumbai is like the Purley Way in Croyden. You probably wouldn't want to live on the Purley Way. And if you were given the chance to move to London but had to work on the Purley Way you might be conflicted by the chance to live right in the heart of the City in all the buzz but with a 2 hour commute to work each way, or choose to prioritise a shorter commute by living in a pretty suburb but have to commute into town at weekends to be part of the buzz. And that is what I am struggling to answer. I have looked at apartments in Powai and in Worli/Lower Parel. Powai is a structured, relatively peaceful green oasis with pavements on which you can actually walk and little roundabouts and calmer traffic. It has few shops and restaurants and a large man-made lake with at least 18 crocodiles at the last counting. It'll take an hour to get to work each day and it will take upto 1.5 hours to get to interesting places in Mumbai at the weekend.

Lower Parel is in the heart of Mumbai. You step out of the apartment block into the mayhem of Mumbai: traffic, people, more traffic, sugar canes, more people. But it is only a 30 min Uber ride to anywhere you want to go. (I'm gonna post about Ubers separately). But it is an hour to get to the office in the morning and 2 hours to get home at night.

And as for the actual apartments themselves I have seen approx 15 so far across the two areas and have shortlisted one in each. I'm thinking maybe I just leave the decision to kismet, this being India'n'all. Which apartment is meant for me will come up trumps in terms of meeting other criteria such as available to move into soonest.

The photo, by the way, is of one of the many high rise apartment blocks I have been viewing which has a vegetable garden in the grounds and that tree is a curry leaf tree. My excellent photography has captured India's modernity and traditional cuisine.

Amy advice on decision making please share in comments.