CultureShock! India by Lynelle Seow

Author:Lynelle Seow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814771986
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International

Furniture and Appliances

Check with your company if you are entitled to furnished or unfurnished residences. From my experience, the furnished ones are aesthetically challenged in many ways. It may be worth your while to negotiate for an unfurnished apartment with an added monthly furniture retainer that allows you to choose your own furniture on a rental basis. Some real estate agents provide this service. This arrangement suits the needs of people who do not wish to bring back furniture from India or do not have the time to get the basics in place, such as the bed, refrigerator, sofa, dining table and chairs.

India makes beautiful furniture, textiles and decorative items. If your taste is for clean modern designs, then it will be harder to find. But if you are into handcrafted furniture rich in heritage, you are in the best place to buy them. A handpainted Rajasthani cabinet, an intricately carved Lucknowi table, a Kashmiri side table etched with brass, a mother-of pearl bureau, a gilded mirror—all these make beautiful pieces in your Indian home as well as talking points in your home country if you bring them home. Ask your real estate agent or friends where to find these shops.

These days you can also buy furniture online wherever you are. Pepperfry.com and urbanladder.com carry a trendy and affordable range and on websites such as Yuni-net, you can buy second-hand furniture from expatriates leaving India. Look out for private garage sales in your expatriate networks as these are fire sales where you can get necessities like heaters and air coolers at a steal.

Another way is to attend an auction, which is a public garage sale that is handled by an auction company rather than the owners themselves. The concept works in the same way as a garage sale except that the auction company gets a cut of the total sales in return for handling advertising, registering of guests and sales transactions.

Do not bring your household appliances unless you cannot part with them. They can be taxed (check with your moving company). Expensive ones may also die if you do not protect them with voltage stabilisers and surge protectors. Household appliances are easily available in India, from Indian brands to global ones such as Philips and Panasonic, which have their made-in-India ranges. The first home appliance you should prioritise is a water dispenser that holds 20-litre bottles of purified drinking water, as tap water is not fit for drinking.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.