【经济学人】印度开挂的旅馆丨2017.2.23丨总第825期

IF SEVERAL hundred million Indians do migrate from the countryside to cities between now and 2050, as the UN expects, it will be a fiendishly busy few decades for Vivek Aher, who runs a low-cost hostel, one of five, on the outskirts of Pune, a well-off city three hours’ drive from Mumbai. A fair few of the new arrivals will have their first experience of urban living bunking in one of the hostels’ 1,350 beds. Should recent experience be anything to go by, most of the new arrivals will test Mr Aher’s patience by tacking posters on his hostel’s walls, or endlessly complaining about the Wi-Fi.

正如联合国预计，如果从现在到2050年期间数亿印度人从农村迁移到城市的话，对于经营着浦那郊区五家廉价青旅之一的Vivek Aher将是极其忙碌的几十年，离孟买有三个小时的车程。新移民中有相当一部分将第一次体验在一家有着1350张床中住下的城市生活。凭近期的经验看，大多数新移民会在旅馆墙上贴大幅广告（海报），或喋喋不休地抱怨Wi-Fi，不断考验Aher先生的耐心。

India has two main drags on economic growth. One is the difficulty of finding a job, especially in the places people live. The other is a chronic shortage of cheap housing. Aarusha Homes, Mr Aher’s employer, started in 2007 to help people seize economic opportunities far from home. Its rooms are basic and cheap. They include up to six beds, a bathroom for every three or four residents, some common areas and little else. Rent ranges between 3,500 and 10,000 rupees ($52-$149) a month including food. 

印度了在经济增长方面主要有两个方面的阻碍。一是找工作的困难，尤其是在居民区。另一个是长期性短缺的廉价住房。阿鲁沙是Aher先生的雇主，2007年，他开始帮助人们抓住在远离家乡的地方的经济机遇。它的房间是有基本设施而且便宜的。它们包括多达六张床，每三、四个居民共用一个浴室，还有一些共同的公共区域和其他地方。租金范围在每月3500至10000卢比（ 52美元- 149美元）之间，且包括食物。

Most of Aarusha’s tenants are young, many of them taking first steps into the middle-class as IT or business-processing outsourcing professionals. Paying up to six months’ deposit for a city flat is beyond their means, as is the down payment for a motorbike that would allow them to live far from their employer. Aarusha’s successful pitch is that its hostels are safer than slums or informal “guest houses”, especially for women. It now has 4,300 beds in 1,300 rooms spread out over 20 hostels in four cities. The typical tenant stays for six months. Satyanarayana Vejella, the firm’s co-founder, plans to raise another $10m to increase capacity by 12,000 beds in nearly 70 new hostels, all in the next two years. Operating-profit margins are in the mid-teens.

阿鲁沙的大多数租客都是年轻人，其中许多人因为从事IT或业务处理外包专业首先跨入中产阶级。用六个月的存款来支付房费超过了他们的能力范围，同时低费用的电动车也会允许他们的居住地距离雇主较远。阿鲁沙成功之处在于其青年旅馆比贫民窟和非正式宾馆更加安全，尤其是对女士而言。现今，已经有1300个房间4300张床分布在四个城市的20家青年旅社中。典型的房客住六个月。atyanarayana Vejella，一家公司的联合创始人，计划筹集另外1千万美元用于支付70家新青年旅社的12000张床来来扩展容量，所有这些将在接下的两年内进行。其营业利润来源于青年人们。

• tenant   n.承租人；房客

• beyond...means  超过了...的能力范围

• hostel  n.青年旅社

• slum  n.贫民区

The chain’s backers include investment funds who seek social as well as financial returns. The latter would be improved if the chain dodged taxes by operating in the informal economy, like much of its competition, but it sticks to the formal side. The problems it faces are those confronted by any Hilton or Hyatt: finding properties big enough to offer over 100 beds is hard. Tenants have to be chased for payments. An attempt to cater to blue-collar workers at an even lower price didn’t work out. So Aarusha is reliant on the IT and outsourcing sectors, which are hiring less eagerly than before.

这种产业链的支持者包括这些寻求社会以及经济回报的投资基金。如果这种产业链通过在非正规的经济运营逃避税收，其经济回报将会增加，像大部分它的竞争者一样，但它坚持正规的一面。它所面临的问题与所有希耳顿和凯悦酒店所面临的一样：找到足够大的工具可以容纳超过100个床位是困难的。租户不得不因为租金而被驱逐。为了迎合蓝领工人而以一个更低价格的努力没有成功。因此阿鲁沙依赖于IT和外包行业，这些招聘没有之前那么急切了。

•  dodge  v.逃避，躲避

Aarusha can probably depend on continuing strong demand for a room from which to make sense of it all before people can get their own places. The hostels have something of a communal feel, and parents find them reassuring because residents put up with not being able to drink, smoke, or mingle with the opposite sex. Soon enough, they will have moved on, taking their aspirations and their posters with them.

“期待您的翻译，将您的理解留言在文章下方留言处，第二天将会有长难句解析哟~。”住旅馆会有一些共同的感受，让父母觉得放心，因为住宿者要忍着不能喝酒，不吸烟或者不与异性交往。很快，他们将带着他们的愿望和海报继续向前走。

翻译 ▍E-J-2

审核 ▍向北

编辑 ▍hua外音