What you missed can be your gain also

At any point of time, when you look back to your past life, you can easily list out what all you did not do even though you could have done many of it if only you did not hesitate to do it.

As the time passes, your opportunity to do it goes and in spite of your earnest hope for doing it, the opportunity and situation will never ever come back. In other words that opportunity has passed you and you are left with no other chance to regain that opportunity. I have heard many lamenting on such loss for ever about missed opportunities. Even I myself had many such missing forever.

When I used to work with a company at Chennai, there was a beautiful secretary to our General Manager. She was also doing modeling and everyday newspapers showed her pictures wearing different type saris for sari sale promotion and some other day she appeared in ads wearing towels only for towel ads. She was quite friendly with me and had invited me several times to her house. I was a bit apprehensive of becoming closer to her in spite of her stunning looks. I have felt bad later several times for not allowing myself to be close to her especially after she left the job after getting selected in IRS. People in our office connected her selection to good contacts she had through her family contacts. Naturally people would like to connect good fortune of others to some “reason”

Because of my feeling of missing her I used to think about her later whenever I used to think about my Chennai days. Recently I have made a Google search for her and found her present location and life status simply out of curiosity. Even though no more a model, she still looked good and seems to be enjoying high society life with all connected vices and goodies. Then I started thinking that what I considered earlier as my loss may in fact be my gain. In none of her present day pictures she appeared happy. That glitter in her eyes has gone and she is no more that confident girl.

So what we may think of as our loss can also be our gain. In fact our life and paths we may take in life are preplanned and routed by somebody else. We simply move along unknown paths accidently reaching predestined places, people and situations in life.

This does not mean that we can be simply lazy and leave God to do everything for us. In any situation in life, we have to act in the best possible manner putting our inputs correctly without bothering much about what we will get back in return.Bhagavad Gita taught us to do what we have to do without bothering much about what we will get back in return. It also tells us that whatever we have today was owned by somebody else earlier and will belong to somebody else after we leave the world. So be detached to an extent to increase mental peace and happiness.

House loan

Building a house is the greatest investment for any one especially Keralites.While venturing into the greatest investment of life,most of them do not plan it properly,do not collect information and study about how to go about building your house.Many simply think it is like buying a commodity from the market and hence simply go on enquiring from contractor to contractor looking for that contractor who will quote lowest rate without bothering much about small writing in the bottom of the offer-Conditions apply

As i have written many times earlier,once you decide to build your house or even feel the need to build your house,you should straight away go for it with careful study and preparations.You need a true professional who has not only qualifications in designing and building houses,but a wealth of experience in designing and building houses with an open eye for acquiring knowledge on new developments in the field as technology developments come faster in this area.

Cost of construction even with professional Engineering Estimates can only give  approximate indications as all input costs for building a house keep increasing in Kerala conditions.You need professional guidance to avoid unwanted expenses and to choose right material and workmen to get best appropriate and most economical results.

In my opinion even if you have sufficient funds with you,it will be better to avail house loan which give you repayment period from five to twenty years depending on your age when you apply for housing loan.The simple reason is that you get money now to build your house at cost prevailing today.Tomorrow cost will definitely reach unreachable levels for you if you simply postpone your house construction.When you avail housing loan you will have to make installments of payments after few years when real value for money used by you for construction has come down much in terms of the purchase capability of the money.So when you avail of Housing loan you get higher value money and as years pass you repay money with much lower value.

There is no point in searching for that bank which offers 0.5 or 0.25% less rate for loan.Whatever may be the rate of interest banks tend to collect over a period of years almost double the money you have taken as loan of course with lesser and lesser value for repayment money as years pass.

Let us see what all the documents bank will ask for processing your housing loan in Kerala

1.Original deed which shows that you have absolute ownership for the land

2.Encumbrance certificate to be obtained from concerned Registrar office where you registered your land purchase deed for the past 13 or 14 years(it may vary from bank to bank).This will show history of ownership of your land for the past 14 years and will show if there is any liabilities on the land duly registered with concerned Registrar office.

3.Land tax receipt in your name clearly showing you as the possessor of the land as per the deed issued by concerned Village office paid up to date.

4.Possession certificate in your name issued by Village office for the land

5.Location certificate for the land issued by Village office

6.Original or copies of all previous land deeds for the land at least for the past 14 years

7.Copy of Building permit issued for construction of building by the concerned Panchayath.

8.Copy of approved Plan duly approved and sealed by concerned Panchayath prepared and signed by your Architect or licensed Engineer and you.

9.Original of Estimate for construction of the building preferably signed by a Chartered Engineer.( Banks will pay only 70 to 80% of the cost indicated in this Estimate.So you have to give suitably prepared Estimate in consultation with bank officials)

10.Building tax paid receipt(up to date)if the land has any other existing building .

Kerala Style House Elevation

Look at three dimensional view of house designed by me for an NRI with traditional Kerala Style.If you like this Elevation write me for the Plan and other details to

vhthomas@viruvelil.com