The bathroom ceiling collapsed at night, and a young woman living in a PG shared her frightening story. She described the difficulty of going through such moments when a building starts to collapse, imagining the possibility of death from dust and smoke. She wondered how those who lived in Satya Niketan managed before calming down and going to sleep around 9:30 PM.
About an hour after falling asleep, a sudden loud noise, resembling a terrorist attack, was heard. She and her friend flinched in fear, their hearts pounding rapidly. Soon, a noise from below indicated that the bathroom ceiling had fallen. The girl emphasized that this was not fiction, but her personal experience.
She recounted that three years ago she moved from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi and Noida to live in a PG. This incident made her confront the fear of death for the first time, forcing her to contemplate the choice between life and death. She shares this story so that people associated with PGs, real estate, or kitchen services can understand their difficulties and view them as people, not just clients.
Specifically, the incident occurred on September 7th, around 10:30 PM, in her PG in Noida. Despite the late hour, there was no major commotion because she and her roommate wake up early for work. After a long day, they fell asleep when a loud crash echoed in the room, revealing that the bathroom ceiling had collapsed.
The girl recalled arriving in this city without housing the first time, relying on her father's limited budget, which had already paid for her education. She spent many days searching for a suitable PG or apartment, realizing that finding good accommodation in this city was a great stroke of luck. Since then, issues with food, safety, rent increases have arisen, forcing her to frequently change residences.
About a year and a half ago, she found a PG where the food was better than in other hostels, and there was less control from the 'moral police.' For a monthly fee of about 8 thousand rupees, she received these conditions. However, after the ceiling collapse, her fears intensified. She began worrying about similar problems occurring elsewhere, and her thoughts turned to issues of safety, cleanliness, food, water, electricity, internet, noise, and privacy.
Her dream is to earn enough money to rent a larger apartment and manage her own meals, but the gap between the cost of living and income in this city seems unattainable. She wishes to find a quiet place after work where there are no issues with cleanliness, food, water, electricity, or privacy violations.
She feels that young people from small towns coming here for careers are insignificant amidst the glamour of metropolitan high-rises. They pay high rent monthly but receive only bare walls, a sense of insecurity, and forced acceptance of any terms. When she complained to the owner about the broken ceiling, he replied evasively: 'It happens sometimes, the handyman will fix it, why are you panicking?' At that moment, she realized that for him, it was minor property damage, whereas under that ceiling lay her life and the hopes her parents had placed on her in this city.
Now, when she falls asleep, even the slight noise of a fan causes a feeling of dread and wakes her up. Even while washing up in the morning at the sink, her gaze is constantly fixed on the cracks in the ceiling, fearing that another piece might fall. In the city where she came to realize her dreams and build her life, every night now passes in prayer for seeing the next day safely. In her own room, for which she pays a significant portion of her income, she feels a strange sense of alienation and terror that only someone who has experienced such nights can understand.
