Whew!
Now that we look back, it seems like a well-crafted script.
It begins more than a decade ago and goes like this -
Enter: Two protagonists - My husband and I.
We have a dream that we dreamt together - to buy some land for farming in Vasai.
It is a pleasant dream and gives us a creative way of fantasizing about our future.
There is a certain complication: We don't have the money.
So we wait till we have some money.
Six years later...
Enter: Mr D, a young, budding developer. He leads us to a nice plot in a neat bungalow scheme that he was planning. We love it but there was a complication - we didn't have the kind of money he was asking. Yet.
We would have to take a heavy loan if we wanted to buy it at that time. It was against our principles to live beyond our means. Our parents had brought us up that way.
So we just keep on dreaming.
Five years later...
Enter: Mr C, a middle-aged developer. He presented before us the proposal of a little farm that was a part of a large rice field near the famous Vasai fort.
This time round, we had the money. We promptly gave him the token amount that he asked for. No papers were signed.
A year later we found out from other sources that this piece of land was already sold to someone else. Fortunately, we got our money back.
We continued to dream.
Three years later...
Enter: Mr F, a well-known developer, who arrived in Muscat and smartly presented us with a property proposal directly in our living room.
This was it! - we thought.
We gasped at the prospect of owning such a beautiful green farm as we viewed it with the help of Google Earth.
We immediately wrote off a chunk of our savings on the cheques that we handed over to him.
"Give me six months," he said as he rolled up his papers and left.
A year passed.
On our visit home, we soaked coconuts in water so that we could plant them when our farm was ready.
We went to meet Mr F in his fancy air-conditioned office.
"These things are not so easy. Give me some more time. There are several families who own this land and I have to get signatures of all of the members, you see. Don't worry, it will be soon" he smiles. He looks down at our little daughter and asks her if she likes Vasai. She, too, has dreams of a flower garden in the farm that we plan to buy and has already made a list of flowers.
Another year passed.
The coconut saplings are now ready to be planted.
No updates from Mr F.
Our dream begins to wilt.
Yet one more year passed.
So, last month, we went to see Mr F in his office again. Our daughter did not come with us.
He spread out a chart in front of us. It had a big family tree with several branches. We did not recognise any names.
Mr F circled each name as he explained to us who has signed and who has not and for what reason. He talked for an hour. We simply nodded.
Using a red marker, Mr F circled two names.
"Now these two here" he said pointing to the names, " absolutely refuse to sell."
"What are their demands?" asked my husband.
"They have not made any demands" Mr F replied, hopelessly.
We felt hopeless, check-mated, stale-mated, dead-ended, ...or whatever else you would call people in such a situation.
"Can we have our money back, please?" we told Mr F.
"Please don't lose hope. I am building a state-of- the- art building in the heart of the town. Are you interested in buying an apartment instead of land?" he said excitedly.
"Our dream, if you remember, was to buy a farm" we remind him.
He simply smiled.
We have given him a December deadline to return our hard-earned money. We have no choice but to sit back with fingers crossed.
Enter: Mr G, a landowner who wanted to sell his farm so that he could buy another plot near his house.
He called us in response to a notice that my husband had put on OLX.com a couple of months ago, which said "Looking for an agricultural plot in Vasai from landowners only. Brokers, agents, developers: please excuse."
There was an enthusiastic response from brokers, agents and developers which we ignored.
It rained heavily this monsoon. The rain drummed on our rooftop and we barely heard the phone ring when Mr G called.
The next day we went to see him and his farm. He turned out to be the brother of my classmate. Their family lived simply and had high moral values. It was a privilege to be associated with this humble family. Within a months time, most formalities were completed.
Enter: Our dream. Its an old one now, with burnt fingers and lots of patience.
It finally opened its eyes last month to see a lovely piece of farmland.
Thank god!
(This is a true story. Names have been disguised to protect identity. Any resemblance to persons with similar initials is purely coincidental. )
