HR House Rent

Korok, Sivakumar, Saibal and Sayandip were crewmembers of their SRFTI diploma film. After that Saibal joined as an intern at SRFTI. Sayandip joined Shri Shikshayatan School in Kolkata, Korok started doing freelancing. Shivakumar started assisting a famous cinematographer in Chennai. It was the story of 2008. Now in 2020 Korok had become a famous director in Kolkata; Sivakumar had become a famous cinematographer in Chennai; Saibal had been working as an associate professor in Chandigarh University; Sayandip had become the interim head of the department of the cinema department of Chandigarh University. Yes, it was a coincidence that after almost 11 years Saibal and Sayandip met in person in Chandigarh getting appointed for the same department in the same designation with the same salary. CU provided one month of hostel accommodation for them within the university campus. So they were really happy. Within this one month they started looking for a rented apartment nearby the university. So they searched on magicbricks for an apartment and eventually they found an apartment by the Kharar-Kurali road. The rent was fifteen thousand INR. They did not argue with the broker since they were outsiders and they needed an apartment as soon as possible. They did not have much time except Saturdays (all Saturdays were not holidays at CU) or Sundays. The broker took an amount of half the rent. So they paid for it without any argument. They signed the agreement without any argument. Now after one year, it was time to renew the agreement. Like every month Saibal phoned the owner Parvesh, who was also a young working chap from Delhi, to pay the amount. Parvesh did not like to take the rent by bank transfer since he had to pay tax for that. But now as the world knew COVID-19 pandemic hit the world and India was no exception.

So it was the time of lockdown and he had no other choice but to take the rent by bank transfer. Both Saibal and Parvesh had SBI savings account. But he said that next month there would be a new agreement since the contract was getting invalid this month and he proposed for a ten percent hike in the rent. Saibal got a bit shocked since he used to pay the rent and electric bill collecting money from Sayandip. When he told Parvesh that it would be impossible to pay ten percent more, Parvesh told that it was written in the agreement. So, Sayandip said that he would leave the apartment next month. Parvesh phoned him and tried to ask him to stay back. But Sayandip was adamant. Saibal's mood went off. He could not do office work from home for that day. So the pressure was coming from his colleagues. Now the dilemma was Saibal wanted to stay back and Sayandip wanted to leave. But Saibal could not cook and Sayandip could cook very well. Besides they had been friends since 2005. Now money was breaking that relationship. Saibal had two choices, either leave the apartment with Sayandip or get a new boarder for the apartment. So he phoned Suvadro, who was a three times National Award winner and currently working temporarily at CU as a professor of the same department. Suvadro did not like Sayandip. But he liked Saibal. So he agreed to come and stay with Saibal. But the problem was he could not cook at all and Saibal loved to eat. But Saibal did not like to change places so frequently. So nobody knew what the solution was? It might so happen that in the end, Saibal decided to leave with Sayandip so that he did not have to bear the burden of extra rent. He knew that there were many cheaper places around with a parking place for his car. This was the market economy indeed! You could not fall in love with a place, people and neighbors just because of money. 'Keep changing man!' As the management gurus taught 'Change is the only permanent thing in the universe!' at the reputed business schools of the world. So after the lockdown, they had to leave the place since they taught the world that 'change is the only permanent thing!' They were still unmarried. So Saibal thought what would happen after he got married to her girl friend Dipabali, who had also been staying at a rented house in Mumbai. Would they also tell to change his spouse according to the situations of unequal economy?