+ Rant on Civic Behaviour - 1

That was a long hiatus. Anyway, this is the start of a serial rant on civic behaviour. Here goes....

Two days ago, I was driving back home at around 9.30 pm, and got caught in a stupid half-hour-long traffic jam at the usual bottleneck (more about that later in this serial). As I parked in the basement, I wasn’t particularly in the best frame of mind. I reached the lift, and immediately heard the whine of the lift warning announcement: “Please close the door. Kripaya darwaaza bandh keejiye”. Yeah, sure!

I was on the basement, and the lift was stuck on the first floor because some uncaring ass hadn’t bothered to close the lift door properly. I could hear the irritating music and complaint through the lift shaft two floors down, and I know that all the eight flats along the corridor on that floor could hear it too. And the fellow who left the door open would have heard it right through his trudge to his front door. And nothing was done about it. The basement had a guy ironing clothes. He would have heard it too – didn’t do anything about it. The watchman was out at the front of the building, and he had to go up and close the damn door.

This had happened at least once earlier too. We could hear this monotonous alert on the third floor, and my wife finally had to go out and close the lift – stuck on the second floor!!

This kind of nonsense goes on all around, and really pisses me off. And this is not the only thing that happens in our building. The basement has a large bin where residents are supposed to dump their garbage bags. It is routine to find bags lying on top of the lid, and next to the bin too. I would bet the refuse makes them queasy. I would also bet that they scrub their toilets clean everyday.