60 A roof to sleep under, in the city

From 1969 when joined REC, I and my family were staying in the quarters allotted by the college except for a few occasions when I went on long leave or when there was acute shortage of quarters.  Having an own house to live in is a desire for any middle-class family if they have no house of their own to live. In my native place, the family house of mine and my wife were given to our sisters and so we did not have a place of our own to live. Looking for a house after retirement, I thought, is too late. Sometime in 1988, I and my brother had purchased a few cents of land in the centre of the city at a distance of less than one KM from the mofussil bus stand on Mavoor road. It was on the North side of Azhakodi temple, close to Mini bye pass. A former engineer in the government service  had purchased this low lying area at a low price. When it was known that the Calicut Development Authority  is planning to acquire  this land, he along with his wife and a friend together   approached them telling that they will develop this as a residential colony, develop the roads and drainage and hand over these to the corporation. In return, they wanted permission to sell the land as per an approved plan for the colony. The land was in between two elevated places, a marshy land with a few coconut trees on mounts of land here and there.  Many of my colleagues had purchased land near the college and were building their own houses. However, we were thinking of moving outside the campus as our children had grown up and  outside the campus we will be able to meet people of different professions and types. In the campus, we meet the same set of persons day in and day out and when we meet, very often the discussion will be related to our salary, seniority, promotion or other service matters.   

During these days, husband of a colleague of mine who was in merchant navy had formed a real estate company in Calicut along with some of his friends. They were planning to build a set of residential flats. He was after me to buy a flat but we, hailing from a village were not interested in a flat as we would prefer an independent house with a little front yard and back yard. When we refused to buy a flat and will only go in for an independent house, he said they can build a house for me along with their flats. The structural engineer for the builder was a former student of REC like a brother to me, promised me that he will make sure that the construction is of good quality. He designed a three-bed room house for us in the 12 cents of land we purchased consisting of two plots of 6 cents each. 

The area identified for the residential colony was like a paddy field which was filled by land brought from a distance. At that time, there was only one house on the border of the colony close to the elevated hillock. My brother and myself had taken four plots right in the centre of the area and was in the deepest portion of the land. We had chosen perfectly rectangular plots in the middle.  As the solid strata for foundation was too deep, it was necessary to use a pile foundation with an average depth of piles of 15 meters. Therefore, the additional cost for making the foundation was enough to overtake the reduced the cost of the land. With some help of the Civil engineer (to be) daughter and the  doctor(to be) son  and my dear wife, we proceeded to build our own nest. Under the special care of the engineer Damodaran, the construction was completed in about a year and a half. Practically nothing was spent on beautification and we made sure that every square inch inside the house was utilized. Two bed rooms upstairs for the children, master bed room on the ground floor with a hall, kitchen and a study which can be converted to consulting room for the doctor was the layout with a total area of 1800  sq ft including porch. The roof was as usual made of concrete but sloping type with mosaic flooring and kitchen slab with black granite, the most expensive part of the building. There was only minor  hiccups  in the  wood work as  I had purchased  the  required wood from the  government  store  in Puthiyara and the   carpenters who came to fix the windows and doors were too  inexperienced. The plumber also was an obstinate fellow who never bothered to obey me even in fixing the master control valve  to stop the distribution of water  in the house at a convenient height for me to operate. The civil contractor was an excellent worker who himself was leading the concreting work which was near perfect.   

Problems were coming up one by one as we were nearing the completion of the house. A well was dug but the water from the well when tested in our laboratory was found to contain all dangerous chemicals including fluoride an lead such that if a small baby drinks that water, it can turn blue due to oxygen deficiency. For the construction work, water was taken from a distance but it had a saline taste. When we approached the Kerala Water Authority which had just taken over the distribution of water  from the corporation, they told us that new domestic water connection will be given only after identifying all the  illegal water  connections  given while it was done by the corporation and may take several  months. Fortunately, the Chief Engineer in charge was from the first batch of REC and when I approached him personally, he said what is possible is to provide a public tap in the colony from which we can take water, that too if we are ready to bear the cost of laying the pipe line.  I was using a 30-meter hose pipe to fill water into our ground level sump in the small hours of the night as water supply was erratic and no water was available during day time.  Drinking water was being brought from the well of a retired ITI teacher Gopalan master living on the periphery of the colony about 200 meters away from our house.    

Even though I could find a solution to the water problem, next was the electricity. As two   persons had started construction along the road in front  of my brothers  plot behind mine, they promised  to bear at least part of the  cost for  OYEC (Own Your Electric Connection), I got an estimate for three phase  electric supply but  my partners backed out telling that it was too  costly. So single phase connection was requested from electricity board.  When I approached the Asst engineer who was supposed to sanction the single-phase connection, he said electric posts are not available and made me walk up and down several times. On enquiry someone told me this person is corrupt and only bribe can make him do something.  I approached the Asst. Exec Engineer whose sister was known to me and the Exec Engineer who was senior to me at TKMCE, but both of them said they cannot interfere as the AE  is the sole authority to decide  this. In my exasperation, once I approached the AE and asked him bluntly what should I pay him to get electric connection. Now, he was smiling and I knew I have caught the   bulls in its horn. I gave him a few hundred bucks as I did not have any other alternative telling that I will give him something more after getting the connection. Now he said some old teak wood posts are available dismantled from the beach side and if I can arrange to get it transported to our colony, he can give connection. On the third after moving into our house, on a day it was raining heavily, electric line was drawn into our colony and the bulbs burnt bright at 7PM on that day. In addition to the payment to KSEB as per OYEC charges, I had borne all the expenses including the labour charges for laying the lines. Remember that Deputy Chief Engineer  Damodaran Nayanar and Executive Engineer  Lakshmana Iyer were  my good friends, but still I had  to be on candle light for 2 days before I got connection. Thus in July 1990, on a rainy day we started living in our new  house.  

At that time, modern house building materials as available now were not available. With the minimal expenses without any luxury type materials in the construction, we could complete the house in less than 4 lakhs. With some difficulty, I did all the preliminary work in getting the first house  building advance sanctioned  by the REC administration and received one lakh as  loan at 9% annual interest. The balance amount was raised from our savings and donations from relatives.  Like that we had a house of our own near the city centre.  Our daughter was  allowed to stay in the REC hostel and our son got his commuting distance reduced to almost half  to Calicut Medical College. We named our house ‘Mangalya’ fitting with the ‘M’  for the first letter  of all the  names of the  members of our family. We have  completed   29 years staying there comfortably without any major  repair work except  changing the ground floor to ceramic tiles and  minor replacement of the  water taps. Roofing tiles were laid on the concrete roof to reduce heat.  A 1.6 kVA solar inverter has been fitted from which the electricity supply during day time is available and 1.0 cubic meter  biogas plant which  provides us  cooking gas for almost an hour, keeps our premises  clean and provides  manure (slurry)  for the plants on our terrace vegetable garden.