I am a master in India

Chapter 374 The Indian Middle Class

Ashish is actually not very satisfied with his apartment on Mira Road.

But his family liked him very much, especially his mother.

Years ago, when they were still living in the slums of Chogashwari, Ashish's mother saw a house like this in a Gujarati magazine, with its flowing curtains and bright lights.

She immediately asked the gods: When will we be able to realize such a dream, when will we be able to step into such a future?
Now Ashish can smile and point out to his mother that in their new home's living room, there are curtains hanging in the windows and a lamp hanging from the ceiling.

When he first moved into his new home, his house was always bustling with visitors, mainly his old neighbors, relatives, their colleagues, his sister Laju's former students, Ashish's own friends, and so on.

It took them two generations to finally move into a place that could truly be called a house, and to take a big step towards becoming middle class.

The Ashish family's story is a history of Mumbai's transformation. They first moved from the Fort area to the slums of Jogshwari, and then to a new apartment on Mira Road.

All of this was thanks to Ashish finding a good job, and he also helped several of his cousins ​​find part-time jobs at Suer Electric.

When one person attains enlightenment, even their chickens and dogs ascend to heaven; this is an opportunity for slum dwellers to leap over the dragon gate.

As these relatives and friends gradually accumulated wealth, they also moved into apartments on Mira Road.

They consciously aligned themselves with Ashish, united around him, and followed his lead without question.

He was the family's linchpin; everyone around him owed their success to him, so they naturally knew what to do.

Of course, the houses on Mira Road are indeed nice; they are the kind of middle-class housing that countless slum dwellers dream of.

Take his cousin's family for example. For the first time in their lives, the children had a relatively independent resting space.

The first thing they did after moving in was to rearrange the beds. Now, the older cousin (who was the main breadwinner and the one who paid for the apartment) and the youngest brother, Parish, sleep in the bedroom. Another brother, Saish, works as a salesman in the suburbs of Marathi and doesn't come home often. The older cousin's mother sleeps on the chaise lounge in the living room, the father sleeps on the sofa bed with his fourth son, and the younger sister sleeps on a makeshift bed next to the kitchen.

What seems like a cramped two-bedroom apartment to people in South Mumbai is incredibly large to my cousin's family.

“I even feel overwhelmed,” my cousin and Ashish said. “The room is so big that it keeps me from sleeping.”

So the family squeezed back into the living room and slowly drifted off to sleep amidst the noise of the reassuring television programs.

Oh, by the way, my new Suer TV has a "sleep timer" function that will automatically turn off after half an hour.

Having only had one room since childhood, they longed for more and larger spaces, but once they got them, they didn't know how to use them.

In Ashish's new home, there are hand-painted vases in the living room. The light streaming in through the vine-covered windows is plentiful, but the number of mosquitoes is equally astonishing, yet the people in the house seem completely oblivious.

The glass case displays three of Ashish's works created in his spare time: one depicting the Eiffel Tower, another the Statue of Liberty, and the third a man peeling off his clothes along with his skin.

He is a graduate of a respectable university, and his knowledge and hobbies have a touch of bourgeois sophistication.

One wall of the living room is covered with dark brown stone tiles, and two spotlights on the ceiling try to add a touch of warmth to the cold, hard wall, which is quite different from the other three walls painted white.

People thought the stone bricks were just for decoration, but actually they were there to cover up the leaking wall behind them.

Ashish was in a difficult situation; his newly acquired apartment, which had only been handed over recently, was already leaking everywhere. But when guests praised the design of the stone brickwork, he never revealed the real reason behind it.

Ashish still remembers the brochure from when he bought the apartment; it was the initial reason that attracted him, his family, and all the residents of Chandreshchau.

The brochure, with its highly saturated red, yellow, and blue colors, exudes a tacky vibe reminiscent of 1950s American real estate advertisements, even though the latter were intended to attract customers to buy homes in sunny California.

The brochure contained numerous spelling errors, and the text, written in ornate bold type, read:
In the 80s, a group of energetic young entrepreneurs had a dream: to create a beautiful and peaceful oasis outside the desolate and monotonous urban buildings.

Under the leadership of its founder, the late Sri Chandresh Roha, the Roha Group has brought vibrant life to Mumbai's weary homebuyers. Today, every property under the Roha Group is a symbol of warmth, comfort, brightness, joy, and prosperity. Choosing Roha is a path to a happy and fulfilling future.

The brochure features silhouettes of Mumbai skyscrapers, as well as images of low-rise buildings surrounded by palm trees, couples strolling leisurely in front of them, luxury cars driving along clean streets, children's playgrounds, and the blue sea with its distant, splashing waves.

The brochure promised to build a bus station, tennis court, club, and library in the community to solve the "last mile" problem, but none of these promises were fulfilled.

But if you were sitting in a shabby shack in Chogashwari, with sewage flowing outside, drunkards raving and thugs shouting and swarming through your only window, along with buzzing flies, and you were examining a brightly colored brochure, you might be willing to believe that these promises were true.

Perhaps that night, as you fall asleep, you will dream of your children playing in a lush, green playground, your wife cooking at a marble countertop, and you walking back to your brand-new apartment building from the bus stop on a Saturday night, the road beneath your feet so wide, the country air so fresh.

In reality, the operation and maintenance of the community are extremely poor. The building's walls are uneven, and the conduits in the walls that should be used to lay electrical wires are empty, left exposed after being dug up.

There was no elevator in the elevator shaft, and even the staircases were unfinished. The developer promised to create a communal garden in the community and install water heaters that meet "Indian national standards" in every household.

But the garden never materialized; instead, a house was built on the land where the garden was supposed to be, and the installation of the water heater never materialized.

Ashish then filed a complaint, and what was installed was a device so weak that it "couldn't even heat enough water for a mouse to take a bath."

But as stated in the contract: this is also considered a water heater.

This ridiculous machine is not only small, but also extremely sensitive to water levels; it won't work if there isn't enough water left.

The shower water in the pipes was supplied every other day, so the family had no choice but to install a water tank in the attic to store the water.

Drinking water is even scarcer, delivered only once a week. Unless you bribe the driver with 100 rupees per truckload, they won't let the water tanker into the community.

But this amount of water is far from enough, so the owners' committee hired a private company to transport three truckloads of water to Chandreshchau every day, at a cost of 325 rupees per truckload.

The heads of these water transport companies are the most powerful people on Mila Road. They monopolize all transport routes in the area and prevent the municipality from laying any additional water pipes. In Chandreshchau, drainage is just as difficult as water delivery. The sewers and sewage pipes are practically non-existent, and the owners' committee has to pay an extra 400 rupees per month to have water drained from the vacant lots.

If the drainage system were to completely fail, housewives and office workers would sit on the railway tracks in revolt until the government intervened to temporarily resolve their difficulties.

In addition, residents have to pay for sanitation workers out of their own pockets, and they have no way of knowing where the sanitation workers will take the garbage.

If only municipal garbage bins that are emptied every two weeks are used, the community will inevitably become smelly and littered with filth.

Because Mila Road is located in the suburbs and is not accessible by bus, the residents' committee once spent money to hire an eight-seater van and asked a fellow resident to drive the residents to and from the train station, at a cost of two rupees per person.

The rickshaw drivers on Mira Road were unhappy (they charged 20 rupees per person), and they surrounded the van driver, scaring him so much that he dared not take any more fares.

Residents called the police, and when the police and local councilors arrived, they all sided with the tricycle driver.

Therefore, the people on Mira Street spend most of their monthly wages just to get the most basic necessities they deserve: water supply, sewage, and transportation.

Milara Road is located right on the outskirts of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, which is both its appeal and its fatal flaw: it is a no-man's-land, a so-called urban-rural fringe.

Fortunately, Suer Electric has developed rapidly in the past two years, and Ashish's status has also risen accordingly.

He resolved everything in the community—from the water supply to the biased police officers—with just one phone call.

The tricycle drivers outside no longer dared to make things difficult for the van drivers.

The developer of the residential complex, Chandreshchaw, personally stepped in to resolve the water supply issue and even hinted to Ashish that he had more upscale apartments available if needed.

Ashish refused, as mentioned earlier, because there were too many friends and family members there.

He moved to a luxury apartment, but they couldn't go with him.

Only when family members are united can they take care of each other.

But overall, Ashish's family is much more comfortable than before. In the past, their relatives who had become wealthy earlier would come to visit them in Chogashwari, look at their little shack, and ask them why they hadn't moved away yet.

It was so frustrating that Ashish muttered to himself, "Don't they want to move?"

My parents used to have a lot of money spent on medical treatment, and we had no savings at all.

When he was still living in Chogashvari, he never told his college classmates his home address. He also never visited their homes to avoid having to reciprocate.

But now he doesn't have to hide it anymore. Relatives can come and stay overnight, friends can come and visit, and anyone can come to visit at any time.

Look, this house is full of relatives and friends who live in the surrounding buildings.

Ashish beckoned his cousin Damendra aside, as it wasn't appropriate to discuss selling the film in public.

"Doesn't your wife's brother run a bookstall in the Kimball district?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?"

"Don't sell that stuff anymore, you won't make much money from it."

“Actually, some magazines sell quite well, those magazines that feature scantily clad women.” Damendra gave him a knowing look.

"These are just pictures that don't quench your thirst; are they as exciting as a movie?"

"Movie?"

"Yes, adult films, all kinds of types."

"You mean selling videotapes? Those are too expensive, not many people buy them."

“No, look at this.” Ashish pulled out a CD.

"Huh?" Damendra took it and turned it over and over in surprise.

"This is called a VCD disc. Like a videotape, it can play all kinds of movies. But it's much cheaper, only ten or twenty rupees per disc. And it's not as delicate as a videotape. You can put it in water, take it out and dry it, and it will still work."

"Really?" Damendra's eyes lit up.

"Of course, you probably can't imagine that you can make these CDs yourself."

Ashish then explained the VCD project, focusing on how to burn discs, how to operate it, and how to promote it.

Sure enough, his cousin Damendra was immediately interested.

This kind of business, where one can control or even create sources of goods, has great potential.

As an Indian man, he knew all too well the desires people had for this.

That's completely endless; after all, how can life be complete without that kind of thing?

After discussing it, the two brothers both felt that VCDs would be a hit, and the CD business would be even more booming.

(End of this chapter)