"Not under my roof!"

tofu67

I have been renting a flat in South Delhi for the past 2.5 years. The landlord and his family occupy the first two floors and I live on the third. I wouldn't say we have had a particularly harmonious relationship but we have been civil to one another and I have been largely able to go about my normal business unhindered. During this time I have had guests round of both genders and quite often people would stay over. Where be they visitors to India and I have put them up for a few days, sometimes girlfriends would stay over, and sometimes people would stay simply because it is late they are a little inebriated and it is much easier to take the couch. Nothing particularly unusual in this.

This changed a few days ago when I arrived at my house quite late with my girlfriend. As we stepped out the car the security guards walked up to us and stared, and continued staring until we had entered my flat. Had my friend have been alone this would of course have made her very uncomfortable, but we didn't think much if it at the time. When she returned to her car a few hours later she discovered that her tyre was completely flat. The security guards were very quick to jump to the rescue and change the wheel for 50 bucks. We had suspected at that the time that the security guards themselves were responsible for the flat tyre but this became obvious later when she found out that she hadn't received a puncture but the air had been let out.

I brought this matter to the attention of my landlord. Instead of showing concern that the very people who are employed to protect people's property are in fact attacking our vehicles he declared his extreme disapproval of the fact that I was bringing this lady back to the flat. He was very embarrassed and visibly very agitated when he told that his was not 'a commercial premises' and that what I was doing was not right. When I demanded that he told me straight what it was that he was insinuating, he told me he knew that I was bring 'call girls' back to the flat and he knew this because he had been informed by the residents association, who had in turn been informed by, yes you guessed it, the security guards who let my girlfriend's tyre down.

I explained to the landlord that it was wrong to make such assumptions and besides, even if I did bring call girls back it was no concern of anybody else (rather predictably that last remark did not go down too well).

I had in due course met with the secretary of the resident's association and explained the situation with the security guard vandals and attempted to put him straight on the 'call girl' issue. He assured me he would look into it and agreed that security guards ought not to attack people's property.

Now what I had realized at his point was that several females had for one reason or another stayed over in the past, and on one occasion the landlord himself offered to give one a lift in the morning. But the difference is that none in the past have been Indian, but either ex pats living here or female guests who are visiting India. Indian females who have been round have usually left the same evening (perhaps there were a couple of exceptions, but unbeknown to the owner).

Things came to a head this morning when my friend was leaving. She was immediately collared outside by the wife who demanded to know her name, what her relationship was to me and what her phone number is along with many other personal questions. I told her a little later that she had no right to interrogate my friends in such a manner. Her husband joined in and in a fir of rage accused me again of bringing working girls back to the flat and that the next time he was calling the police, he also told me I have to leave the house again using phrases like 'respectable household' 'decent neighbours' and accused me if having no respect for Indian customs and beliefs. This gentleman is a Sikh and follows a strict code of moral conduct himself, this I would never question but I thanked him not to impose his beliefs onto me.

I am quite mystified by the whole situation. I am 40 yrs old, I have been told after living in this flat that I must not have females round after 11pm, that the owner's children must not be exposed to this behaviour (the owner has two children living in the house, the youngest incidentally is 21 ), that in Indian culture 'decent people' get married. I was tempted to tell him that may have been a consideration were it not for the fact that she is too young to consider marriage


What am I to make of all this? To what extent should I have to curb my freedom to placate the neighbours who have their own ideas about who I should see and at what time? What would the police be likely to do if they were called? Should I adapt my behaviour since I am a guest, or is it entirely none of their business what I get up to in my free time? I rather think the latter, but I do not wish to be thrown out so that I have to pay another month's agent's fee and possibly be up against the same problem. Would he have any legal recourse to evict me on the basis that I have a girlfriend who stays in my flat beyond 11pm?(there is no stipulation in my contract prohibiting such depravity).

Has anyone had any similar experiences?

Cheers

puchoo

I am not sure what to say given that you are not an Indian and i cannot predict the reaction of the police...

Indian landlords can be very fussy. That's a fact. More often than not you will not find someone who you can get along with a 100%. Your application is subject to irrelevant criteria such as whether you are a non vegetarian , what religion, sometimes community background, single or not single, kids or no kids, foreigner vs India etc...

women coming over is enough to send most landlords up the wall, and them spending the night over enough for them to fall down the other side....but normally they tend to gossip, ask a lot of questions, an outburst to this degree is a bit rare so early on...

Are your girlfriends making excuses and spending the night with you..ie. do their families know about it (if they are Indian to begin with), if everything is in the open tell him to call the police..there appears to be no ground for any kind of action..and i would have got the constable/inspector to phone the parents or whatever and embarrassed the hell out of him....

....the feedback to the landlord would have been very clear..'you never told me"...dont push it too much and ill call the police on you and never vacate the house..

...but thats coz i know how the police and the landlord would react to me.....i dont know what it would be for you....

maybe you can tell him you are gay...? (He'll have other things to worry about then and not the women )

if its easy enough why dont you just shift...is it a personal lease or a company lease..?

I empathies with you on this , i had issues with my first few landlords as well..the thing is that the fight's there for the picking...but do you want to?

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tofu67

Yes I had considered the gay angle, if anything just to challenge his somewhat blinkered world view but I had already mentioned that the lady in question is my girlfriend. I could intimate that I may be bisexual, so would he care to ban males from my flat too after a certain hour? Yes that is a good one.

I think what strikes me more than anything is the idea that a young Indian lady who stays at the flat of a foreigner at an ongodly hour must be a prostitute. As if any self respecting Indian would not entertain such a notion unless it were for financial gain, this is quite offensive in itself and perhaps not a little racist. The curious thing is I have not had any problem when foreign ladies stay over, quite possibly they have not been happy about this, but have not challenged me and certainly would not have threatened police and eviction.

My girlfriend does in fact live alone (her family live in Punjab) but I am sure her parents would not appreciate a call from the cops asking them if they knew their daughter was sleeping round at flat of a (quite older) foreign man. Would the police really bother themselves with such a matter? (she is 22 yrs) I don't know if it is considered a law and order offence here. I wonder if I could make a counter complaint over defamation of character and force an apology from the landlord.
I am tempted to fight this one out as having to move over such a petty issue is a real drag and as I mentioned in the last mail I may be up against the same issue in my next place.

mani

Dear Tofu,

Yes the police will concern themselves even if your GF is 22 years old and moreover since you are much older then her @ 40 & a firang. There are just too many cases of older foreigners hooking up with prostitutes for them to not look into it.

While I dont agree with what the security people did to your Gf's car, and the way your girlfriend was accosted by the lady of the house.I can also see the turmoil your poor landlords may have gone though before acting the way they did.

Have they protested when male friends / guests from other countries have stayed with you.

Please understand that your landlord must have been harassed by the society people by taunting that you have been bringing a working girl/s to your rooms and that by allowing you to do so he is causing a problem in the residential area.

In India everybodies life is their neigbours concern and a means of oneupping on the neigbours. For many middle class indian families their reputation in the society is important. The one thing that is drilled into our heads from the time we are children is to behave in the manner that befitts your family's reputation & not to do anything morally wrong. Most girls have restrictions that they must be home before 7PM/ 10 PM etc.

can you even begin to imagine what this morally correct family must have gone through. Neighbours pointing out your supposed indiscritions, wrongdoings & they trying to keep quiet and ignore them. its not easy.

How important is it that your girlfriend spend the night with you. these things are not acceptable in most modern middle class families. Is she your steady GF and the only indian woman to spend the night at your place alone.

since you dont want to move from this place, speak peacefully with your landlord understand his diffculty, and workout a solution rather than getting worked up.

all the best
mani

PeakXV

We rented a flat in South Ex.under the same living arrangement with a similar female curfew. We treated it all as a bit of a 'game' though and found it strategic to win over the security guards, who after some gifting & bribing, always seemed to look the other way when female friends & colleagues arrived/stayed on longer then appropriate. Our landlord was confined to a wheelchair so he wasn't exactly charging around like Basil & Sybil .... although with the Cuckoo bird door bells, incompound pigeon population & other strange goings on at that place .... it seemed a bit like Fawlty Towers.


.... settle your differences now & face to face or move on as quickly as possible it seems are your only options.

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Nick-H

Amazing, isn't it?

And quite ridiculous too: what can be done at 2.00am can just as easily be done at 3.00pm!

Yet I found myself worrying about what the neighbours might think of visits from even my perfectly platonic female friends before I got married.

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hash666

yes it is.. i was living in with a girfriend in chennai once and the house owner questioned me if i was from a good family.. i was wondering wat dat had to do with having a live-in..

capt_mahajan

As others have said, it is a cultural thing, plus tenants getting prostitutes in rented accomodation is a genuine concern of many landlords and housing societies.

Your girlfriend can be subjected to embarrassment by the cops, who may investigate a bit - and more by the landlord and wife etc. She will find the insinuations uncomfortable.

My two bits: decide first if you want to fight or take flight or want to make nice.

Then act accordingly.


Also, be aware that at some stage you may lose your temper. I did in a similar situation once in Bombay, and with a cop. That sure complicated a few things for me.

Nick-H

concern, yes, genuine, even, reasonable? Hmmm...

However, prostitutes getting tenants in rented accommodation is a different thing. Can, of course, be utterly discrete, can also lead to heaps of trouble.

If these people actually knew a bit more about the real world, then maybe they'd get the words in the sentence in the right order and worry about the right things!

Not that it helps Tofu at all; we are not going to change his landlord's thinking!

capt_mahajan

From a landlords point of view, yes. Even the neighbourhood. For one, the area gets a bad name, and prices may be under pressure. (Maybe they should rise instead )

In Mumbai, at least, many housing societies have rules against these kind of things- and single girls will tell you how difficult it is with some landlords/societies to get rented accomodation. I once got a call in Hyderabad about the single girl staying in my flat in Mumbai because of her 'misbehaviour'- they wanted her evicted.

And, I forgot

Not unless he had it in your lease. (Slightly confused about this, you say the landlord family lives in the rest of the house, which implies a standalone house- but you also talk of a residents society or something )

natureschild

It doesn't really matter what your lease agreement says, what you really need to do is get your landlord into confidence. Treat him like an extended family and "discuss" your situation re your GF. That will make him feel important and will probably allay some of his concerns.
Taking the fight up to the landlord will not serve your cause and will only make things tough for you. Indian police is not particularly known to operate within the law itself and there is also an unwritten social practice. While they may not be able to do much to you but can certainly make things tough for your GF.

Nick-H

Could try it, but people set in such ideas and views of the world aren't easy to change.

Think UK back in 1950s, or before.

natureschild

Sure, it won't be easy but at least there is a chance. Better to fight the system (landlord & his prejudice) from inside rather than as an outsider, which will only get Tofu evicted on false charges.

federica

I was thinking exactly the same thing... some rules in India are hardly understandable for foreigners, but I think they should be accepted to some extend.

I think your landlord was quite liberal letting foreign girls stay. But lots of Indian men have this concept "all white girls are easily available anyway", so I guess he was thinking they don't have to be prostitutes to act like this... but an Indian girl of that age... oh no... at 22 the girls are normally not "free", they are still controlled by their parents, till they get married.

Of course there are girls in the cities living a quite Western life, having platonic and not platonic male friends. But in the concept of traditionally living people they shouldn't exist.

So what to do? I don't think an open confrontation with your landlord will work. Either you look for a more liberal landlord and a new home or you have to make some arrangements, like bringing your girlfriend secretly or meeting at her appartment or in the daytime... whatever...

nycank

Even in the toniest of the Delhi 'nabe in the late '70s, I had noise and female visitor curfew hours with my landlord. I think it was 10PM and 11PM respectively.