Love Thy Neighbor

By N Habib (NDChronicle.com)

Mrs X was returning to India after one whole year.

The day she was to arrive, there was much activity in the building she resided. Her neighbours' children were clattering up and down the main staircase joining the four floors of the apartment building and the housewives were talking to each other about the special dishes for the day through the shafts where their kitchen windows opened. Generally the occupants of the flats only shouted out to each other when they could smell something burning in one of the kitchens of the apartments.

The air was festive and everybody seemed to be busy and having a good time.

An outsider might have wondered how good a woman Mrs X would be that she had inspired the whole building to welcome her so warmly.

This was not the case. Mrs X was just another normal neighbour – full of the usual positive and negative traits of any other woman, or like any other of her various neighbours who were excitedly preparing to welcome her that day.

“In Sydney, Police discovered the corpse of the elderly woman, who had died in 2003, after a call from her only known relative — a sister-in-law from whom she was estranged.

The woman, Natalie Wood, who would have been aged 86, was still receiving a pension but the house’s electricity had long been disconnected. Her remains were found on the upstairs bedroom floor of her terrace home in the suburb of Surry Hills, near Sydney’s Central station.

Police said they were contacted on Tuesday by Ms Wood’s dead brother’s sister who had tried to make contact with her to pass on some family information. Family relations were “fractious” and the women had not been in contact since 2003. Natalie Wood had been a loner. The neighbours had believed the house to have been vacant since a long time.

“There are no other relatives alive except the sister-in-law ... It’s a tragic thing to find. Tragic.” [Source: Telegraph.co.uk]

The were two instances that showed two very different scenarios. Ironically, both the incidents happened not more than ten days ago and in metropolitan cities.

We hear of the ways how life in metropolis is different from the life is smaller town. How people are so involved in their own life and in so much hurry, they never bother about or have time for their neighbours. How village life is so much warmer and more about neighbourliness and sharing. True and not really true. It is true because it happens so these generalizations can be called true. And false because these generalizations are not exclusive truths.

Take, for example, the first situation mentioned above. It happened in a very busy locality of New Delhi – a city as metropolitan as it goes! And the inhabitants occupying the building are no ideal or exceptional settlers. About three years back, when the building was newly constructed and the flats wre still being occupied by a new family every month or so, the neighbours were as aware of or concerned about each other as you would be about the writer of this article. Next door neighbours had no idea how many people lived in the next flat or where they had come from, leave alone be friends with them and share the day-to-day joys and sorrows. Typical metropolitan lifestyle, you would say.

But the families, as they settled down as months passed, made an effort that is very much possible and very much required in the so called 'metropolitan society'. The women of the building visited the other families and would often carry little tidbits that they had made. Sometimes it would a specialty dish of the place they had come from, sometimes it would be the dessert prepared just because one in the family felt like having something nice and sweet. The dishes were exchanged, greetings said, inquiries made about the kids, informations exchanged about the family members and just like that, within a few more months, the building had turned into a big family. Visitors would marvel at the bonhomie shared between the occupants of different flats and the friendship among the ten or twelve kids of the families in the building.

No, this was no idyllic life. Kids also had loud rows on the stars, neighbours would complain about the loud music from one flat and each had something to say behind the other's back – like any other joint family! But this all came with the accompanied love and sharing that made the building look like a haven of love to all those who came here...

And then there is the other extreme. The tragic and painful incident where the old lady had no one beside her at the time of her death. If only her neighbours had made a little effort, it would not have been so difficult to turn the suburb into a happy locality where people were aware of their neighbours. And even for loners like Natalie Wood, it would not have been undesirable to reply to the greeting of her neighbour when she stepped on her porch. Just a little effort and metropolitan society need not be so infamous for its coldness and selfishness...