My Jungle on the GST

We live in a gated community today. Around 450 apartments clustered over nine floors and four blocks. We have neighbours all around. Upstairs, downstairs, left and right, front and back, East and West, South and North; you name the direction and we’ll find there a neighbour. We know not, however, any of them. There is always that excuse, “Where is the time to socialize?” My sister and I walked over to the apartment next door with a box of sweets on a festival day. A man in his fifties opened the door, stared at us like we were salespeople, but turned a smile when he realized that we were two of his many anonymous neighbours. “Oh you got sweets, thank you! You are from across the lobby? 305?” “Oh no uncle, we’re staying next door, 303.” “Ah good, I live here—302.” “Yes, we can see that. Happy holidays, we gotta go now.” More forced smiles, some awkward Japanese-style bowing of our heads, and soon, we were back home and comfortable, at 303!

Twenty-one years of my life, we lived in an independent house, facing the national highway, the Grand Southern Trunk, aka the GST Road. The house itself was almost hidden away behind a dozen and more shades of green, and I called my home the “Jungle on the GST.” Life in an apartment, though, is so much more peaceful, and let me tell you why. Back at the jungle, our biggest worries were about the receding water level in our well. Yes! we had a proper “well,” not a bore well. Kids these days might want to Google the term. There were apartments coming up all around us, and their bore wells, we believed, were responsible for our well drying up. And then there was this problem of general maintenance. We had to hunt for days to find a plumber, electrician, a painter, or a gardener. Here at the gated community, these services are part of the package, 24x7.

It has been three years since we had a power-cut and a candle-light dinner with the moths and other winged critters, three years since we made our last call to the EB; three years since dad had to clear up the walkway to our door after a monsoon night. Not anymore, not here at 303. Back at the jungle, we sweated out on many weekends on our garden. Clearing away dead leaves, cleaning the knee-deep lily pond of algae, feeding love birds, diamond doves, cockatiels, and little finches that filled our little aviary; and the most priceless of all—giving our dog a bath. It was a once-a-month affair and a pretty tedious one at that. The task demanded the attention of three people. My dad, I, and the third would be my sister, mom, or grandmother. One held the soap, one held the hose and bucket, another held the dog. At the end of the hour-long battle, each of us would be as wet and dripping as our amused dog. Speaking of hose brings to mind the picture of dad or grandmother going around the garden with it every morning. Or during weekends, it was my sister, and sometimes, I. Our neighbours had cats, and they (the cats) would visit every Sunday afternoon for fish or chicken, had long naps on our backyard, and they made sure to leave the compound late evening before we let our dog out. We also had coconut trees; and they were a threat because a coconut was likely to fall on your head if you stood under it. (Don’t ask me why you would want to stand under it.)

The rains were a nuisance at the jungle. All the greens around the house would get a shade or two darker, and the bushes became so much thicker that you could hardly spot the house behind it. The smell of fresh earth would bring along with it new colourful insects, and many times, we even found a snake in our lily-pond. We suspected it could have been hunting for fish, but we let it be. We did sometimes worry about the snake entering the house, but I was more worried about our dog finding the snake and trying to bite it.

That was all at the jungle though; here at 303, we worry not of such things. We cannot have our own budgies or finches, but there are pigeons that fly past our windows. We do not have a private lily pond anymore with pink lilies that bloom once a lucky year, and with fish and snake; but we have a common swimming pool, a common lawn, a common gym, and common what not (but of course, we have not the time for any of those what-nots); but the best part is, we need not tend to any cleaning of ponds or aviaries, or muddy our finger nails and toes in the name of gardening. Dogs are allowed in our apartments but with strict conditions and rules; we decided not to get one, so no more family battles to give a dog a bath. No more hosing around. No neighbours or their cats to bother us at lunch on precious Sundays. It does not matter if the leaves turn greener or the flowers lure butterflies. The monsoon does not worry us anymore. No moths, no insects, no smell of fresh earth.

This is modern living; for those of us, or rather all of us, who have one eye fixed on the clock at all times. This is modern living, where a house is not the home it once used to be. This is modern living, and I see everywhere more locked up bungalows waiting to be brought down to rubble and turn into multi-floor apartments.

I live, here at 303, an easy life. Yet my heart stays at that jungle, with the birds, the fish, the wild and unkempt trees, the pond with the lilies, with my dog and the snake.