I could never afford to live here in NYC

With the notable exception of my apartment in Argentina, where the couches were literally stuffed with maggots, I have always lived in much nicer apartments in the developing world than I could ever afford in NYC. India is no exception and, after visiting many horrifying apartments (Thanks, but I'm not going to spend the entire year taking cold water bucket showers), I'm quite pleased with what I ended up with. I previously posted the picture of the living room, but by popular request, here's what the entirety of the house looks like.

This is half of the balcony

 This is the guest room (where I'm currently staying until the fourth roommate moves out)

 This is the area where we do the laundry, and sort of keep all of the stuff that prior residents have left. There is also a balcony outside that door which we don't use at all because pigeons have totally taken it over. It's pretty gross, actually.

 The kitchen (with a washing machine. Yay!) That blue jar on the left is how we get our drinking water.

 A view into the living room from the foyer.

 The foyer. We keep track of who has paid for what communal thing on the blackboard.

 This will be my bedroom (with balcony!)

 

The living room.

View from the living room into the dining area.

Private roof deck. In this picture it's lit up for my roommate's going away party (which was totally awesome until I tried to go to bed and found three men locked in my bathroom. I figured they were either having sex, vomiting, or doing coke in there--and I'm happy to report that it was probably the third option, which is the easiest to clean up)

It's a four-bedroom place, though there will only be three roommates from next week forward (so there is an additional guestroom). What's really nice about the apartment is that it comes fully-stocked. I mean the kitchen gear is legit, the fridge is crammed full with yummy things (and because the maid/cook does all the shopping basically all roommates can eat anything in the kitchen--except for my stash of diet cokes which I guard zealously), the bookshelves are filled with interesting reads (and India guidebooks), there are more than enough sheets and towels to go around, and there are like three full cabinets stocked with booze of various types. I didn't have to buy anything (except for possibly my departing roommate's bed). Basically, I think that this apartment has been handed down from expat to expat over the last however-many years and each person has left their home appliances/linens/whatever else they didn't want to schlep back to their home country with them. (For example, I was asking my roommates where I could buy a yoga mat in Delhi and they pointed out that we have three nice yoga mats here--left by previous tenants).

The flat even comes with a part-time dog. We call her Schmoozie. Urban legend is that Schmoozie used to live in our flat until her owners moved away. Now the guards downstairs take care of her--but she comes up to visit nightly and we give her doggie treats and lots of petting.

So that's my place here. Pretty nice, no? But, ever since I first went up to the non-private part of the roof and surprised an elderly Indian man sitting on the floor eating a watery dal I have suspected that there are people actually living up there. And now I've confirmed it--yes, there are in fact people living on the roof; there are little concrete rooms with tin roofs set up.   I'm dying to know more about the roof-dwellers, who I think are the servants of the people living downstairs,  but don't want to invade their privacy. . .