Indians as a race

We Indians have no civic sense. We use the roads as a public toilet as though ailing from an acute prostrate that leaks every minute. People holler into their cell phones at public places thereby blowing the brains of others in the vicinity. Indians on trains keep their mouths busy chewing groundnuts or jamuns and making a mess around. There is something about the race that insists on being a public nuisance.

We also are deficient in the social aspects. I stay in a flat and there is a car owner who would honk as to attract the attentions of his family in the second floor and driving us insane in the bargain.

My father was a wise man and when he purchased a flat in the 70s he insisted on a first floor one. He reasoned with uncanny foresight: People from flats above will throw waste below and strangers would come asking for addresses. 30 years on and we have still not improved in that direction.

I stay on a two-storied flat and so we are 6 apartments in a block. The amount of nuisance one has to endure makes me want to sell the damn thing and retire to the hills. One asshole rented his apartment to a service apartment company and we had no end of troubles. The entire block soon resembled a hotel; anyone could come in and go. One guest committed suicide and the rest of us in a rare spirit of unity registered a police complaint urging them to rescind the hotel arrangement. Finally the man buckled under the combined strength and now it is let out to a family.

There is Christian pastor below and they are another nuisance. On their own accord they cut of a massive tree for no plausible reason. This tree would be adjacent to my bedroom and I would have a nice view from the computer table. I was livid and but it was a fait accomplice; I just ended up cursing them on the face!!! I was so incensed that I stopped paying the monthly maintenance till they assured me of improved conduct in the future.

Then there is a Punjabi family on the second floor. They have been here for over 40 years and yet cannot speak passable Tamil. Be that as it may, their sons keep honking cars or bikes to attract attention till I put a full stop to it at a residents meeting.

The Christians are fast turning into a bag of trouble. They changed their electricity connection from single phase to a third phase and that meant endless drilling. I had to shout at them as to give advance notice so that I can escape somewhere else when the flats are being bludgeoned.

Today, they were putting an 8×10 feet hoarding right in front of the building (large enough to cover one side of the entire building); there is a mass congregation of Paul Dinakaran (where our man works as the funds incharge. He was idealistic when he first turned pastor and now evolved into a money sucking priest with a penchant for foreign trips!!!!) for which this flex hoarding was being stitched together. BTW, Paul Dinakaran is an eminent evangelist; so famous that he runs TV channels in which this entire family takes centrestage. Religion sadly is no longer the preserve of pious men but a sound business for men with glib tongues.

I went to their place when this horrible thing was being fabricated on wooden poles. I asked barely keeping my voice balanced," Who gave you the permission? You claim yourself to be good Christian but can’t resist being a nuisance. Remove this activity or I shall go to the police".

They knew that my words were not empty barks; I have complained to the cops before.

The activity came to an abrupt halt as others in the building congratulated by rare success.

It is things like that one feels sorry for oneself for being here. This country is full of nasty surprises. I have little doubt in my mind; we are inferior race and so blinded by selfishness that our immediate demands solely matter. Others may as well don’t exist or let them go to hell. (The picture is a knockout here: one person reading the paper and others around him crowding to get their eyes in…….typically Indian, you would say)