Community living needs training

Community living needs training

Most of us nowadays opt to live in an apartment instead of an independent house to avoid the hassles of maintenance and security in addition to more opportunities for finding company and engaging in activities of choice. The increasing number of high-rise residential buildings mushrooming in urban areas, offer a plethora of choices in this regard.

Don’t get me wrong. Living in an independent house even if you are a tenant, has its own advantages. But if one is looking for facilities like gymnasium/badminton/tennis/squash courts, swimming pool, club house, safe parking, family/relatives/friends, the location (quiet area/heart of the city/near workplace), all on offer at one place, then living in a residential complex or housing society as they are also called, is the possible answer. Some people look for gated communities even if the incoming visitors feel hassled when they have to answer a long list of questions in spite of the tearing hurry they might be in or poor level of patience they possess.

Looking for our Utopia we finally settle for a flat or apartment which is very close to offering one or more (but never all) features and facilities, part with a considerable amount of money, move in with all the precious belongings or junk we own, start to find our bearings and to feel good about our decision to live there.

The plus points are the friendships, pooled and pot luck meals, kitty party groups, celebration of national days and festivals, picnics, religious, social and sports events, morning and evening walks in groups, shared auto-rickshaws and shopping trips, and company for children to expend their energies. One is at ease thinking that somebody among the residents would be there to help in case of sickness, financial or family troubles.

Television has given me direction in this regard. Watching Tarak Mehta ka Ultah Chashma, filled me with hope and optimism as I saw the helpful nature of all residents and their common objective of problem-solving.

But real and reel lives are vastly different as I have come to realise. Sometimes living in a residential complex starts to feel like a poor, even, cruel joke. One becomes aware of the inflated claims, unfriendly neighbours, poor maintenance and constant bickering among the residents.

Living in an apartment is the clichéd mixed bag of experiences. The brochures handed out by the builders look so good that you feel like you are going to live in one of the Scandinavian countries, but what about the people living there?

After three decades of very socially active living (sometimes bothersome) in the railways, it was a matter of disappointment to find that people in the complex I live in, are not very friendly or cooperative (I am, however, not sure if there is a problem with me or this is the general trend).

There are residents who clutter plants and decorations outside their flats which make it difficult for the staff to clean the area but the former find a reason to complain about.

Green revolution believers on upper floors crowd their balconies with potted  plants. Naturally they need water but most of the times the maid or the residents themselves gushing with joy on seeing these living things grow silently, fill the pots with the elixir and then I can see and hear the water trickling down bringing the soil and the manure with it.

Similarly, someone drying clothes on the balcony does not always care if the water is dripping on the lower floors. Yet if you do not return the garment fallen in your house, you are the villain.

A friend was not amused when I suggested that she gift a bottle of anti-hair-fall shampoo to the upper floor resident who combed her hair on the balcony and her shedding strands had to be cleaned from on the lower balcony every day. 

You might not count me as an intelligent person but I am proud that getting a canopy fixed on the balcony is a proof of my wisdom. It cost a packet, but has saved me from countless cleaning projects, even though I have to rush out during thunderstorms to fold it so that the canopy does not crash (like it did once last year).

Soon after the first wave of Covid one day our water purifier stopped working. I had to spend a lot of time boiling water for drinking and cooking till the company representative came a couple of days later. What was the problem? Every time the overhead water tanks are cleaned, dirt and rust powder from the pipes settle in our pipes because we are on the bottom floor. The caretaker forgot to notify about the cleaning which caused me money, time, effort and unnecessary stress.

Security guards in the society can be a subject of both, humour and rage. Power went one cool rainy morning last week. Even an hour later when the generator set was not turned on, I came out to the balcony to call the guard. But I had no words to console him when he told me his mobile phone was stolen an hour ago as he was napping while on duty.  

Our complex has no designated playing area for children, so they started playing football and cricket on the lawns in the front. Every morning and evening mothers watched proudly as their offspring scored a few runs or goals. This went on smoothly till one day a ball hit a car splitting the windscreen into tiny prisms. That reminded me of our childhood when the biggest excitement used to be breaking the neighbour’s windowpane and your teammates would exclaim in awe, ‘‘What a sixer!” Not in this case. The car-owners huffed and hawed, and scolded the guards for allowing the children to play. Now there is a notice on the board.

Playing football is forbidden in the lawn.

And does anyone know the reason for people playing loud music or not training their children to fix a time for dragging furniture for fun especially during night when those living downstairs might actually be asleep?

I am not violent by nature, so I need to check with the makers of the movie Munnabhai MBBS -2 for a Gandhigiri (Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy) solution to people throwing garbage (and water after mopping their floors) down on the rear open terrace in spite of it being collected from each apartment in the morning. They are happy their houses are clean even though the trash including left-over food, empty containers, cartons etc., cause not only excess work for the cleaning staff, but insanitary conditions and revolting scenes of birds rummaging to find edible stuff.  If I had magical powers, I would have identified the trash by the owners of the flats and piled it back in front of their doors.

Front of our residential complex

Now look at the back:

Maybe most of these apply to those living in independent houses too. But community living demands cooperation as well as understanding of not only your rights, but duties too. Should perhaps be a code of conduct signed before a tenant or owner takes up an apartment? And I have not yet even mentioned the issues of the Residents Welfare Associations in these housing complexes!

                                                                                                  - Anupama S Mani