"Mine is bigger than your's"

by Aditha Dissanayake

I wake up everyday at four-thirty in the morning. Yes. I am a morning person. But no, not by choice. I'm on the same schedule as my next door neighbour who sets his alarm loud enough to wake the whole neighbourhood and goes on to make trumpeting sounds to clear his oesophagus, while brushing his teeth. How are you with your neighbours? Now that Robert Frost and fences are no more, do you feel that strong walls have ceased to make good neighbours?

But imagine a world without the flickering light of a television set, streaks of light thrown on the street, the moving shadows at the window, keys unlocking, voices calling out, telephones ringing, the smell of cooking ... which are all signs that convey a sense of neighbourliness, no matter where you happen to live.

Imagine how lonely life would be if not for the kind folks in the neighbourhood who send a dish of polos or a plate of Kiribath every now and then, who willingly switch on the lights in the evening and feed your pets when you go on vacation and who offer to give you a lift when there is a fuel crisis and the buses vanish from the roads.

Nightmares

You are lucky if you live in such a neighbourhood where everyone treats you as if you are a member of their family, where life is one smooth Kuru-kuru-less journey. But what if it is the contrary? What if you have nightmare neighbours? The kind who plays loud music, keeps large dogs that bark all the time, parks their car blocking your gate and turns regularly at your doorstep wishing to borrow your hammer, ladder or the mamotti, that is, when they are not busy plucking the flowers in your garden to offer to the deities, quite forgetting they have already broken the percept adinna dana veramani sikka padan samadiyamy.

There are also those who suffer from the "Mine-is-bigger-than-yours" syndrome and try to out-do the folks next door.

Plus the Nosy Rosy who keeps vigil on what goes behind closed doors, who is a master at mixing truth and lies about everybody in the neighbourhood in such away that makes you believe she is always genuine until you realize you can't believe anything she says. (But alas, by the time this happens, things are too late) There are also those who are fountains of useless knowledge and unwanted comments, those who make you feel uneasy by pointing out that the bushes of Exora on your drive-way is bound to bring you bad luck.

Negotiations

But, this is nothing new, if you live in a city where you have that much less space of your own, that much less room between you and your neighbours. G. K. Chesterton was right when he wrote ever so many moons ago - "I learnt with little labour the way to love my fellowmen and hate my next-door neighbour".

So when there's friction, or when your neighbour climbs onto your roof during a cricket match to adjust his TV antenna you have to consider whether to go to bat, or battle, whether the situation calls for a friendly negotiation or an all-out war.

Perhaps you can pray your neighbours would change. That they would turn out to be people who are fun to be with. Neighbours who are the same age as you, and have similar interests, similar jobs, similar tastes in music ... neighbours who would keep a bottle of your favourite drink in their refrigerator awaiting your unexpected visits.

Utopia, where everyone will be good to everyone else, keep their noses out of your affairs, yet, give you socializing prospects once you swallow your shyness and say "hello".

Or, perhaps you should just wait the situation out. After all, everything changes, dogs die, kids grow up, people move.

As for me, how great it would be, if a magic spell would cast the guy next door, into being my "secret neighbour."