Lonely in a crowd

I climb the lonely steps that lead to my apartment, just as many of my neighbours do.

Lonely in a crowd

Driving away blues: Lack of personal space can be as oppressive as loneliness file pic

By some coincidence we all happen to be looking in other directions or just standing in a frozen silence as the lift impersonally escorts us home.

I feel a terrible wave of nostalgia for my youth which was crowded with people: siblings, neighbours, friends.

But now life is different. I am surrounded by people rushing, competing, achieving.u00a0 But the socio-statistics belie this happy scenario. People suffer from manic depression. In extreme cases people put an end to what they conclude is a lonely and meaningless life.

Aloneness in a megapolis can not only be depressing, but also unsafe. In the Pensioners Paradise we get to read awful accounts of lonely old people.

And yet there are people who thrive on isolation. There was an old Anglo-Indian lady who had stayed on after everyone else had gone away. She lived to be 95 but sturdily maintained her independence. But this did not prevent her from grumbling about how nobody loved her and nobody took care of her, particularly the ones who did most.

There was another family of sisters who believed that dog are a man's (woman's) best friend. Of the canine variety, she had many friends. But human acquaintances shrunk away from their stinking porch, smelly settees and mangy dogs. One day, one sister got murdered, but no one ever cracked that crime.

Unfortunately more and more old people's children live in USA or Australia. They come home for marriages, deaths and funerals. And after their brief visit is over, mostly occupied with shopping and partying, the cloud of loneliness closes in, more depressing than before.

Lack of personal space can be as oppressive as loneliness. I have been finding this, of late when the town is swamped by an alien population. Babies crying in the night, demolition hammers banging away, strange rustic, utterances bellowed from dawn to dusk. In the peaceful Bangalore Civil Station!!!

And yet there is something charming about little children playing on the sandpiles. Not so charming, though, the yelling to and fro 4th floor, fighting men and women. And the rattle and roar of gas autorickshaws.

u00a0But gone are the days of joint household, (now replaced with disjointed households).

In the old houses servants/servitors were of the live-in type. Outhouses provided space for them, so they were always at hand. It saved them long walks to and from their distant houses. It also meant that the backyard was full of the warmth of human communities.

But one sad form of loneliness is to be an only child. He who hath a brother of his own has a fortress against the blues. It's a strange relationship. My brother and I played and fought, shared hand me downs, shared almost everything. He was a little older than me. If anyone bullied me he intervened. But the prerogative of bashing me up for cheekiness was his alone.

We fought over shares of chocolate and storybooks and so on... Now he is gone; and I would let him have everything, willingly.

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