One thing I have always loved is outdoors and have always pictured myself living in a place sorrounded by trees, plants, water falls, lakes etc. It is hard to create such an environment for yourself on a permanent basis unless you are living in a national park in US or a village in India bordering western ghats. However, I have come close to realizing such a dream for myself and my family.
When I moved here, although it was in the back of my mind, did not ask any agent to look for a farm house. However, the other day out of blue came this proposition if I was interested in buying a farm house? Out of curiosity, I said I am open to take a look (my interest was more to see what they look like and how much do they cost). . The place was off of Kanakpura road and I was told right next to Rishi Valley School. Since I had heard about this school, I thought it will also give me an opportunity to go see that too. Little did I realize how lucky that day was going to turn out and couldn't help later thanking God for providing with this opportunity. The place is 2km off of Kanakapura road. The side road seems like goes nowhere into this rolling hills (just beautiful greenery on both sides) and then at the end of the road stands Rishi Valley school. Right next to the school is this 20,000 sq ft of land. with tall shrubs acting as fence. Once Bhavani and I stepped inside, we instantly fell in love with the place.
The beautiful landscaping and a really antique looking house was just the perfect thing I could have asked. Although the house was built just a year back, they had carefully planned it to look like a house straight of a small village. They had even used the same pillars that were once used in village houses to give it that authentic look. Inside it was little more contemporary but still had some touches of a bygone time. One visit was all that was needed for me to decide on that property.
After that I took several people on different occassions and everytime there was only one comment that "I was very lucky to have found a place so close to city yet so rustic, so peaceful in the country side".
In India only a current agriculturalist can buy an agricultural land. For someone like me I had to get a permission from the government. It turned out that the agent who was facilitating this deal had a contact high up in the government using which we got the permission in 4 days as opposed to some people bribing 1 lakh and waiting for couple of months. Every time these things happen, I look up and say "God, Thank you". The way this whole thing happened reminds me of few other big things in my life where almost nothing was planned from my end, just went with the flow and result was simply beautiful.
Once the deal was concluded, I had to arrange money some in the form of a loan, some over the table and some under the table. That process itself was a challenge to manage having to make several trips to banks and lawyers. Since I had hired a competant attorney to help me vet the document, I also learnt quite a bit in terms all the terminology, the different documents that exist and what to emphasize. Our agent was the single factor who made this happen since he really took lot of pains to go secure the kind of documents that the lawyer was asking for and furnishing it to him.
I also was pleased to learn the use of computers in e-governance. I am sure it is just Karnataka and Andhra who have done lot of work in this regard but still worthwhile. All the previous documents have been digitized and stored on CD-ROMS. So, finding for an old document and getting a copy of it is lot of faster although you still have to bribe the person. All new transactions are done using computers, where the documents are scanneed, photographs taken using a web cam and thumb prints also captured using digital devices. All these become collaterals in making sure the transaction is genuine or atleast there is a way to trace it back to the correct people. All in all it was good to see some use of technology in these kinds of state govt. offices.
The sale deed happened on Dec 16, 2004 just ahead of our 15th Anniversary. Now that I have the property, I need to do lot more work in improving the landscape. More on that later. For now I am sitting back in a more relaxed mood after 2 months of running around (although, I have to admit I was very lucky and had a fairly easy time as compared to the horror stories that you generally hear in India where even after you have bribed everyone, they make you run from pillar to post)
