Do we hate our neighbours?

This is perhaps a million dollar question. Neighbours can be good or bad, depending on your luck. Really, I mean it! There are neighbours who are very helpful and maintain peace within their family. While, there are ones who seem to be born to fight over almost any petty issue in life. They literally make the life hell of those who happen to live next to them.

Now, you may wonder as to why I have decided to write on this topic. Well, one thing we must all better accept that our mental peace to a great extent gets affected if we happen to live next to lousy people. In many a times, we come across incidents or news of some rude neighbour living next to someone known to us.

Really, life literally becomes ‘hell’ when some dreadful family decides to rent or own a house next to ours. Thankfully, I am spared from such a situation, but my friend’s life seems to be in miserable condition.

My friend lives in North Kolkata, in a quiet, peaceful locality. But all peace from her life seems to wave her bye-bye, with the coming of a family of 4 – a couple with their 2 children. A few days after their coming, everything seemed to be nice and good. My friend had even become friendly with the man’s wife and they used to chat for at least once or twice a week.

But, then came the days when the husband dear and his wife used to quarrel over their children’s education. Then even started having fights over her husband's coming late from office and getting drunk at late hours. Matters became worse, with the locality hardly getting any peace of mind, and the condition of my friend was more pathetic. (Her house was just next to theirs)

In Bengali there’s a proverb (“barite kak chil boshte pare naa”), which means that there is so much noise in the house that even a crow or kite cannot sit there. This is true in case of my friend. Gone were the days when she would sit comfortably on her bed studying or reading some books. Now, she hardly can keep the windows of her room open, since her room is just next to the couple’s room, and she gets utterly disturbed by all sorts of verbal abuses that they throw to each other. It has become a daily routine now and she keeps me complaining about changing the house and moving to some other area.

But, getting a decent house in Kolkata is not a matter of joke, especially for a single like my friend. Just hope all things gets sorted out and my friend gets happy again!