Urban Jungle

I flipped through “Habitat” the newly rebranded “Property Plus” on The Hindu last weekend and looked at apartments mushrooming in every suburb and outskirts of the city of Chennai. But then the 10 year experience of living in an apartment made me quickly abandon the newspaper in shock and shame.

Nostalgic beginning….

Like every other builder in the city, he too marketed the apartment by its location, green cover, power back-up and other facilities to all prospects. And on the first day, he called for an apartment meeting to massage individual egos, play the role of a social catalyst and get the owners to form an association and manage the day-to-day affairs. Towards the end, he told the residents that all the apartments would be owned Brahmins and induced a sense pride, prejudice and responsibility to live like a model community. Is the community tag and the similarities in culture, cuisine and festivals enough for people to live together with unity and unending happiness?

Every coin has 2 faces….

We have always lived in a joint family and this was our first experience living in an apartment type of arrangement. My mother always says that we will need an extra supply of patience and tolerance when living in a community sort of setup. Amma also says irrespective of whether you live in a joint family set-up or in a nuclear family within an apartment set-up, there is no escape from responsibility and participation until one is alive. Most of the occupants in our apartment are Vice Presidents holding responsible offices and the remaining enjoyed respectable positions in the society and we assumed patience, owning up responsibility and tolerance wouldn’t be an issue.

Social fabric gets weaved….

The new residents ushered New Year together, organized a community puja on Ganesh Chaturthi, the women strengthened the social fabric during the Navarathri festival and kids came home to get blessings from elders on their birthdays. People took interest in governance, they regularly attended apartment meetings and it almost looked like an ideal apartment and that our politicians should learn from here. And the Tamil saying, "aasai arupathu naal moham muppadhu naal" didn’t apply to us. Pride, expectation, faith, trust, and security was slowing building and isn't that how all relationships begun?

Seepage in the weave of the social fabric….

Ours was a self-managed apartment and in the first few years the yearly elections for office bearers drew a lot of nominations, but as years rolled by nominations hardly came in and a portfolio was also dropped (social retrenchment) to keep the management group small and tight and quicker to make decisions.

As the concrete was exposed to a few summers and winters, cracks appeared, leaks began and the exterior paint began to turn a shade paler. On the inside, alliances and cliques started to form slowing eroding faith, trust, and respect. The Vice Presidents of the corporate world started to skip meetings and abstained from participating in the governance and started to fuel bickering and back-biting instead. As a result of this social withering the property began showing signs of neglect.

A few responsible retired souls continued to remain in the managing committee and contributed to the welfare of the community, but many others were enjoying the benefits from the toils of these genuine and sincere care-takers. The other disinterested ones were on a smooth palanquin ride with these real care-takers doing their job well. And those managing year after year were growing tired and restless. Soon the New Year party came to end, the stained glass image of Ganesha on the façade of the building and the yearly Chaturthi puja was also abandoned. People easily forget that that the social fabric that was once strong and new weathers and thins and is not strong enough to cover the nakedness of people’s egos and self-centeredness. Virtues such as patience, honesty, participation, tolerance and forgiveness that were supposed to be a part of the Brahmin community went non-existent.

Kashmir and its militants….

Some owners violated CMDA norms and converted their open areas into closed rooms. A few others began using common resources for their personal use; some tried to claim rights over common rooms, there were also rumors of money being misappropriated by one of the treasurer. In fact now, there is also a disputed area in the apartment which I sarcastically refer to as our "Kashmir". The builder says it belongs to him and the original land owners, while the apartment owners legally claim it to be theirs based on the achieved FSI. And people with respected social standing kept silent and a mini Mahabharata was brewing. Lawyers were consulted, but nobody took the initiative to settle it inside or outside Court. The environment within and politics in the apartment pretty much mirrored what happened in our political system.

The door closing ceremony….

What looked like a model apartment few years ago was slowly replaced with power struggle and animosity. Smiles replaced with stress, faith replaced with doubt and pride with prejudice and malice. Owners frequently engaged in a war of words amongst themselves and sometimes with tenants. One needn’t have to travel to Wagah near Amritsar to watch the gate closing ceremony. Neighbors on the same floor closed doors on each other face many times a day with equal force and animosity but did it with much aplomb.

The grain exposed....

The apartment culture has accelerated as a result of people unwilling to stay in joint families, tolerate the egos of their in-laws and exercise patience and forgiveness. Questions like why should I contribute and why should I accommodate and adjust was asked to break the fabric of joint family and claim their freedom and pick-up the apartment keys.

The apartment living has exposed our human frailties and proved that we are unfit to live in a community arrangement ever! It is also proof that people with similar value systems get along better than people from the same language, community, culture or cuisine. Today the vegetarian stench in my apartment residents attitude smells worse than the frying of fish or mutton and is reflective of why our country has degenerated to the way it is.

Too little and too late seems to be the diagnosis….

We’ve recently found a property management firm and outsourced the entire job, but still the property needs supervision and attention from the owners. Apart from the exterior badly needing a fresh coat of paint, the years of built trust has been eroded, exposed integrity and intentions need a fix. Will outsourcing agency take care of it?

Today everyone in on their guard and finds it difficult to even exchange pleasantries and courtesies, let alone establish eye contact and exchange warm smiles. And some are even thinking of selling off or renting their property and moving out.

Kids who moved in with their parents 10 years ago are now young adults and how can we expect them to be responsible when their parents are not standing examples. Remember the recent commercial from The Hindu – Behave India, the youth is watching. Watch it one more time.

So where does one go when we don't get along with relatives and neighbors and when we cannot participate and contribute to the society we live in? Where is tomorrow's society headed? Is this why they aptly termed cities filled with apartment blocks as urban jungles? I wonder…