The tale of two flatmates
Housemates by chance, best friends by choice.
by: Tan Yu Jia
Punivathy, 51, stands beside her cluttered coffee table, scratching her head. She's clad in a loose pink nightgown, and looks slightly lost as volunteers shift her furniture around.
At the doorframe, Devi, 41, with cropped short hair, a black T-shirt and trousers, surveys the situation. Her hands are on her hips, and she follows the volunteers' movements with a sharp eye.
"Be careful when you move it," Devi says. Looking to Puni, she says, "You see la, keep so many things."
"I keep it because I need it," protests Puni.
Devi turns to me, and smiles knowingly. "She's always like that, don't mind her. Just do your stuff," she whispers.
This curious pair is Puni and Devi, housemates in a flat at Hougang Ave 1, an area Caretalyst served in the January edition of Project Refresh.
As we cleared their living room space and prepared to paint their walls, Puni and Devi spoke to me and bantered with each other -- mostly, them bantering and me listening.
They met around 10 years ago, when both were applying for a HDB rental flat separately. HDB rules require rental flats to be occupied by two tenants, and Devi, who was looking for a tenant at that time, took a look at the long list of prospective housemates.
A lot of them were too old, said Devi, and she worried she would not be able to take care of them properly.
So when she saw the first 40-year-old lady on the list, she picked up the phone and dialed her. That lady was Puni.
Puni poses for a shot in their home. Devi doesn't like to take photographs.
Prior to the house application, and before she met Devi, Puni had a largely solitary life. Even though she grew up in a household of six children, her relationship with her siblings was far from warm.
After completing Polytechnic, she did not manage to secure a stable job. As everyone else started to make headways in their careers, Puni became the only one in the family who wasn't working. In her 30s, she was still living together with her parents in the childhood home. This became a huge source of tension.
"We had a lot of conflict," says Puni. "They would always ask me, 'Why are you not going to work?'"
After her parents passed away, the glue holding the family together fell apart. Rifts between the siblings became deep cracks. She'd overhear her siblings' remarks about her that "hurt a lot".
Eventually, her elder brother asked her to leave. Packing her bags, she got a house through an agency and stayed alone in a rented room.
"After living with a family all these years, living alone was very uncomfortable for me," said the petite, nervous-looking Puni.
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Then suddenly, her elder sister reached out to her again. She'd heard that their younger brother had bought a resale flat, and suggested that they stay together.
Puni agreed to pay $300 per month to her siblings as rent. Living under the same roof, it looked like things were turning better.
But not long later, fissures began to show again. Tensions rose as Puni kept joining and leaving her administrative jobs due to mistakes at work.
"My younger brother would complain to my sister, saying I was here for very long but didn't contribute (to the household)," says Puni. "It was like back to square one."
After decades, Puni still keeps her photographs framed neatly on her TV rack.
The conflict escalated till the case went to HDB through their Minister of Parliament (MP). By this time, Puni had already experienced repeated estrangement from her family and was feeling utterly alone.
There were no friends in her life too. "My family issue was too complicated, so I didn't want to bring it up to anybody," said Puni.
HDB placed Puni on the waitlist for rental flats, and there she waited for a future housemate. That's when she received the call from Devi.
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They immediately decided to apply together as both of them couldn't wait to get a flat. Devi had previously applied with another friend, but HDB rules restricted applicants to Singaporeans only, so her Malaysian friend could not go ahead.
Under normal circumstances, they needed to wait for 6 months to a year for their rental flat. However, both of them needed an interim place to stay. Devi brought this up to HDB and they immediately had a temporary house the next day at Dover Road.
It was the beginning of their residential adventures together. From the very start, Devi was already generous to her new friend. She paid for the delivery of Puni's furniture to the new flat.
One of their "adventures" was when they were shut out of the flat for a night. The tenant at their Dover Road flat, who knew they were coming to stay, didn't want to open the door, as they were not prepared to share the house. Puni went to live with another neighbour for the night, and Devi put her foot down.
"I called and scolded the tenant," said Devi. Her fiery temper ensured she got her way: soon, they were allocated another nearby flat -- which was more spacious.
It wasn't always as harmonious in this household. Puni and Devi said they took a long time to work out their differences and adjust to living life together.
"Her pattern is different from mine," says Devi. "She's always at home, so she wants me to eat home-cooked food. But I'm working from 7am to 9pm, so I only have time to eat outside food."
This caused disagreements over their expenditure. Puni explains, "In the beginning when we had a lot of troubles, we ended up eating at home and didn't have the chance to eat outside food, because we had to be very careful about our spending."
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Even though they're in a slightly better financial situation now, new squabbles have also emerged.
"She's very fussy about food. Everytime ask me to cook fish for her; I cannot eat fish with you every day," says Devi.
But she adds an afterthought: "I'll still cook for her lah. For me, as long as she eats, it's okay."
Living together for ten years have made them very familiar with their respective strengths and odd quirks. They are each other's bluntest critics and closest supporter.
Puni calls Devi a "caring person, but hot-tempered". In the same breath, she also says Devi is her only friend.
Devi has cheekier comments. "She's temperamental, little bit little bit also cry," says Devi. "I don't know where the tears come from. I think she put eye-mo."
The duo has plans to shift to a BTO flat in Punggol by 2020. Devi and Puni settled the payment fully with CPF savings over their years of work. On the BTO form, she listed Puni as the main applicant.
Seems like they're stuck with each other for the rest of their lives as housemates, yes?
"Oh, yes," says Devi with a wide smile.