The Walls have Ears

The Walls have Ears

By

Murali Murthy 

"My peace, my calmness depends on how sensible, sensitive, civilized, mindful and not-so-loud my neighbour is"

Having stayed in independent house for first 30 years of my life, and last 15 years in Apartments, I understand the emotions of owning a Home physically connected to Land, and the emotion of owning that piece of land as well, is completely different than owning a Flat which is physically in the Air, only connected to ground via Pillars!

There could be many reasons driving us towards Apartments, be it safety, security, amenities, facilities or most of the times - affordability!!

Both comes with own pros and cons. Apartment surely makes life bit easier in terms of basic infrastructural issues, maintenance issues as the processes and procedures would be in place, and people to attend to.

This Apartment culture probably originated in the cities like Mumbai, where it was called as Society.

It's called a society for a reason. When 10s and 100s of houses share a common piece of land and Address, it's bound to be governed for the common good.

Though the associations form rules, regulations to bring in some discipline and sanity, there are limitations they have as they cannot enter the private space of the residents.

The Common areas, corridors are the most abused portions as every resident claim it to be theirs, which are either their extended dumpyard or Shoe Racks!

There should be some sense, responsibility, discipline, cooperation amongst all the residents.

Though all of us understand that we live in shared spaces and have to be accommodative of noise,, sounds from our neighborhood, people should also keep in mind there are no more secrets.

The Walls surely have ears, as every conversation, every argument are heard, especially in the late nights.

People should realize their doors and windows are just couple of feets away from other doors and windows.

The children crying, screaming around late in the night, couple arguing and fighting. They should be aware that all arguments, how they treat their spouse, children, parents, in-laws are known by atleast 6 houses besides, above and below yours.

Those scary, loud sounds as if a rock keeps falling on their floors, heard through our roof. People running around, thumping footsteps and those irritating harsh slamming of Doors are so irritating and disturbing.

I hope we all are mindful of the space we live in and the space we share.

Most of us understand to be cooperative and not crib when there are guests or function in neighbour's house, or when kids playing in corridors or crying or mothers screaming more louder than the kids themselves in anger.

But they also need to mind the time, the mantra should be to try to settle down and not make noices, scream beyond 11.00 PM, afterall who doesn't prefer a peaceful, silent night!

Even those secret phone calls we run to the corridors to converse, away from our own people, are heard by so many ears without your knowledge.

And the legendary Pigeon menace!

Whew, one should see the insane measures and elaborate arrangements they do to get the Pigeons away, yet those creapy birds find way to sneak in. I think Pigeons are like cockroach of birds.

Why do they shit so much???

In a Hindu traditional house warming ceremony, there is a ritual to let the Cow enter the house. With these higher floors that we now have houses, (on a lighter note), Pigeons will replace Cows soon.

People staying in Apartments are supposedly tuned to co-exist, be more compassionate, kind, tolerant with the ecosystem. Ofcourse, we question the authorities when there is a problem and work as a team to get things solved, because we all believe it's one small nation that we live together. There are indeed unwanted politics played by many, groupism, non participants in any activities, like myself!

They are used to living in a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural environment, with a common good cause - living in harmony in a community.