A phenomenon that has always existed in our country but becomes a life changing experience sometimes in a city like Mumbai..where you breath and your neighbour can feel your breath as we all live in such close quarters of each other.. the concept of privacy is a far cry in this city..
But my post is going to primarily concentrate on student (hostel) / tenant vows that one has to face in this city.. as a working professional few years ago i was glad to find a PG which at least gave me the freedom of flexi time and doing my own thing.. but yes even there we were not allowed to bring our 'boy friends' (the gender male) into our PG premises as people in the buildings around would talk.. since ours was an all girls PG.. it was automatically labelled the excuse my language 'Hore House'. And i never understood how such biased perceptions could exist without knowing any reality about those women.. The same was the case with my Hostel as it was an all girls hostel of about 500 women in a prime location in Mumbai and i remember when i was being sent there, my dad had got incessant calls from all his so called concerned friends asking him to re - think his decision because apparently my hostel was famous for a whole lot of 'absurd stories'.. My dad's reaction then was 'i know my daughter and i know she knows where to draw the line.. she will figure what's right'.. and thank god for that as i spent one of the best 3 years of my life amongst a bunch of few of my closest friends today.. The experience that hostel gave me due to it's sheer size, population and variety of people i could interact with, no other place has or maybe will be able to give me..
Other facets of the this phenomenon are much worse and painful.. In Mumbai when you take flats on rent, your neighbours automatically become your moral guardians. They start deciding as to who should and who should not walk out of your home and at what hour.. A lot of people do not rent out their apartments to singles as a rule.. but if you are married, you automatically apparently become human and normal and so it's all good.. this attitude has led to a whole lot of my friends leaving this city.. being thrown out of their houses absurdly.. to a point where a friend of mine never got his deposit back (and that's a hell lot of money) because the owner - a middle aged single woman found a reason not to give it back since the neighbours had complained about him and she was throwing him out.. and when he obviously asked for his deposit back she went to the extent of saying she would cry RAPE.. i was aghast at the extent to which people can do this whole moral brigade nonsense and then lose their own.. suddenly the society wakes up and complains for people being thrown out as they suddenly fear and Alien (note single boy or girl) take over their society.. Just keeps reminding me of the hypocritical society we live in..
Being Single automatically questions your conduct because you suddenly have girls and boys coming into your house and at absurd hours apparently.. i see no reason why someone can decide how anyone should live their lives.. yes i do understand considering the space constraint in this city the noise factor is a big one and so till the time a bunch of guys and girls are not disturbing you in any external way i see no reason as to why and what are you doing noticing his or her daily schedule and living or commenting on any of that..
India in the name of culture lives in this hypocritical society where they run a moral brigade when if we start looking in to each of these people's houses maybe they themselves will have a gazillion things to be ashamed of.. Why can't these neighbours (and i don't deny there are few people who definitely are like that) look at these students or working professionals as people who are living away from their homes and therefore need to have a life beyond what they already do. They have come here to learn to live life on their own and the least one can do is make it a little easier for them rather than question every move they make because their parents back home are there to take care of such issues and figure it out within their fold without needing any needling from unknown strangers.. Neighbours need to realise that they are as much a stranger to these boys/girls and Men/women and vice versa.
It's a long shot to hope in this city for things to change but i can only hope that people and slowly and steadily realise that they need to mind their own business and that's all it takes..
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