Since stocks are in the toilet, I may as well try my luck with real estate. I was bored after losing my ass the past few weeks in the market so I decided to take a spin around the neighborhood. I've heard the Il Palazzo is the THE place in Mumbai to live but I have never bowed to such temptation before. I mean real estate is such a crappy investment these days and I can't sell the stuff fast enough in a down market.
The Il Palazzo is a nice enough place and the real estate agent showing me around was really hot. I mean Ashwarya hot! Regardless, with my dignity intact I looked around at some of the units and she begins to ask me stock advice. I'm thinking how the hell does this girl know me it's not like I'm in fashion magazines. She claims she saw my picture in the newspaper when I was screaming for the damn BSE to stop publishing my trades.
She then begins to drill me on my past legal issues with the BSE and begins to chastise me for settling with them. She seemed to have intimate knowledge of the cases and starting citing violations that I supposedly violated. All I could think about is how I could get away with violating her - er I mean quieting her so that I could look at the flat. She finally quieted her self and starting to talk about the features of the flat and how people that live in the building own half of Mumbai's wealth.
I then asked her if the flat came with a membership to a club but that seemed to trigger an uncontrollable response because she was like "we're living in a community, not in the "Rakesh-Jhunjhunwala-always-gets-to-take-all-the-money-in-the-center-of-the-Monopoly-board-and-never-lets-anyone-else-be-anything-but-the-shoe world you apparently seem to think it is."
Well I thought she looked like a socialist but now days you simply can't tell. I quickly changed the subject and asked her if she was attending a flag burning ceremony that afternoon. She didn't like that and got mad real fast. In fact so mad she started coming at me with fists clenched. I tried to duck for cover but she grabbed me and starting tearing at my shirt. She then starting messing up her own sari and starting pulling her hair. By then end of her freak attack she looked as if she was really attacked. Given I was the only person in the room, she could have made a case that I was responsible!
Then, like a bad Bollywood movie, she changed into a different woman. She calmly showed me the contract for the flat and asked me to sign. I looked at the price, "25 crore! are you insane woman?"
She starting dialing her phone and told me the authorities and media sure would like to hear about her little adventure this afternoon with one notable Jhunjhunwala. I quickly realized what was going on and decided 25 crore looked pretty cheap. I promptly signed the contract and wired the funds thinking my self fortunate. I mean the building and flat are nice -right?
So don't believe what you read in the papers. The world's greatest investor didn't overpay for the flat, he actually got it for a bargain.
