It’s Not Okay And That is Okay

 

Have you ever had that moment, when you’d been agonizing  over something and suddenly, the penny dropped? An instant of such clarity that the earlier, intense ‘innerlogue’ seemed quite unbelievable and superfluous. 

Well, I had one of those inspirational flashes just the other day. I was going on and on about the way that I was feeling and couldn’t quite get to a point of peace with the incident and why it bothered me so much. I was upset and couldn’t quite let it go. Anyway, let me tell you the whole story.

It was Saturday. An odd day because things didn’t go as planned. The team of cleaners who were to come and do a deep clean of my apartment, met with an accident on the way. And the programme eventually got cancelled. I had scheduled my time such that I was up earlier than usual to do my journaling, have breakfast and do reiki healing, well before they got here at 10 am. I had thought that once I had settled them into the chores, I would do yoga on the verandah - out of their way. Technically, I should have persisted with the plan, but the hitch was that their employer didn’t know that one of his staff had been hurt when he messaged, merely saying there will be a delay because of the mishap. It wasn’t till well past noon that he informed that one person was injured and they were at the Saligao police station. It was still not clear what the plan was and who had been wounded  - his staff or another biker. By this time I was a bit disoriented, not knowing what to do, because I didn’t want to begin yoga and be interrupted or commence writing an article, or the drawing of the many shells from my collection. All these activities needed focus and the disruption would be irksome. So I edited the texts for my upcoming Drawing Workshop. And kept waiting. 

Mentally overloaded with an intensely busy week, the last thing I needed was this cancellation. I fretted about when I would be able to reschedule the cleaning. The innerspeak was endless, but I was also getting my work done. By the time I finished, it was 4pm. I had forgotten about lunch so I grabbed a bite and decided to work out the frustration of the upturned day with a swim. I wasn’t sure that I could do much, given how tired I was, but the swim was surprisingly refreshing. That is, until the altercation.

One of the residents, on the ground floor beside the smaller pool of the complex was playing his music more than a tad loudly. I steeled myself to ignore it when I had a shower, right outside the open window. I was able to drown out, most of it, when I swam because, head under water creates a sound barrier. However, after having swum 500 metres virtually non-stop, I wasn’t as energetic and needed to break between laps. Over the past twenty minutes or so, the volume had been getting louder and noisier. It was uncomfortable. I couldn’t pause at the edge of the pool, rest and muse but keep swimming to avoid the imposition on my ears. It was becoming quite a nuisance and I thought of getting out of the pool, walking across and suggest lowering the level. But, just then a staff member passed by and I asked him to request Rishi, who lives in that ground floor apartment, to kindly turn the decibel down. 

It is a short pool and not one most people like to use as the other is much more spacious, surrounded by a lush garden  with flowering shrubs, greenery and an awesome view of undulating hills, palm trees and paddy fields. I love to swim in that larger scenic pool too, but it’s usually crowded with tourists and most are not there to swim. They paddle around, float on their backs or when they do an odd length, are unable to stay a straight course. All of which makes doing my laps difficult and hazardous. Most of the time, these visitors who rent apartments are new to swimming and get into the pool with their daily clothes on, usually without any sense of swimming etiquette. Generally accusing me of being snobbish with my requests to wear the appropriate costume with cap, take a shower before getting into the water and more. Suffice to say, it takes the pleasure out of my swim. And with Covid, I really don’t want to be in a crowded pool. Therefore I opt for this small one, where I must do eighty lengths to complete a kilometre. But, I am alone, it is quiet(usually) and I enjoy the exercise without having to worry about what others are doing and who is going to bump me in the head, scratch my arm, how and when. 

But, once Shambu had been asked to pass on the message and I completed the short length, I found Rishi, standing at the edge of the pool, feet apart, hands on his hips, posturing for combat. Taking his right hand off his hip, raising it to face level, now twisted from the wrist joint,  four fingers twirled, stiffly extended and fanning out; thumb in a belligerent, outward slant, index and forefingers thirty degrees apart at the tips, pointing upwards and out, with the other two digits turning inwards towards the wrist, he posed with an antagonistic form of the, otherwise informal, questioning mudra. Asking what the problem was. With an almost bald cranium, salt and pepper unshaved stubble seemingly standing on ends, bespectacled eyes rolling upwards, lips pursed and puckered to the right, contorting the ageing facial features, his animosity was impossible to miss. Added to which, the positioning of his boxer-short clad long legs and hips was of a man about to pounce. Right leg forward, partially bent at the  knee, the left leg extended a couple of steps behind and on its toes, with hip strutting out and backwards – poised to take a leap or do a ‘Tandava’. Actually, more ape-like than anything close to the elegance of Lord Shiva in a rage. 

But, what was the fury for? I had merely requested accommodation of my need to not hear the music. I wouldn’t have bothered to say anything if it wasn’t a nuisance. Though taken aback by the attitude and words that followed, I politely reiterated the message I had passed on through Shambhu,  that the music was getting too loud, therefore could he turn it down a bit. His reply startled me. He could have acquiesced and just gone in to do the needful, because my appeal wasn’t unfair. I am very sensitive to noise, and am tired of being called intolerant or having low tolerance or it being implied because, not only should neighbours be considerate and accomodate each other, the law is very clear that music should be contained within the four walls of one’s dwelling. Specifying 55 decibels as the permissible volume during the day. This is equivalent to the sound emitted while using an electric toothbrush or coffee percolator – certainly not sound that our ears can catch beyond the confines of an apartment. A washing machine being louder at 63 decibels. And even this isn’t overheard in passing by. Besides, even the white noise of an air-conditioner which is even louder, doesn’t jar as much as songs you don’t want to listen to.

However, Rishi was angling for a fight and spurted out an unsociable and abrupt: “why?” To my answer that I wasn’t enjoying my swim, because the music was disturbing, he countered in an annoyed tone: “you live on the other side, why do you swim here?” When I started saying that there are too many people there, he didn’t let me finish my sentence,  interrupting with an indignantly voiced “ so they can make a noise and I can’t?” If I wanted to return the hostility I could have retorted that he had just conceded to making ‘noise’. I would also have explained that it wasn’t the sound factor but the other stuff, but he didn’t give me a chance and went on with his tirade. “I have lived here for five and a half years and no-one has ever complained about the music” Adding in a shriller tone: “why do you always have to find fault with everything!”. 

Truth is that most people buy peace at all costs and don’t speak up, even if it does bother.  I don’t agree with this passive stance because in not standing up for what is reasonable things reached a point where the law took matters into hand, drafting ordinances to ensure that people like him don’t take undue advantage. But, he was doing it anyway.  It is indeed regrettable that educated and affluent people  are  uncivilised and need decrees to define decent behaviour. And, even when these laws are in place, they refuse to follow them but indulge in power spats. At that point in time, I couldn’t see any of his neighbours around. The doors and windows of the apartment to the right and above were shut. They were probably out.  I was peeved at having to endure his belligerent bullying. I have equal rights as a citizen and had listened to his music for long enough. I wanted to complete my swim in peace, and why not? But I neither derided nor refuted his immature libel. Instead I muttered, almost to myself, that “I don’t want an argument” and began swimming away from where he stood, to the other side of the pool, but he went on, “ you started it!”. I silently questioned: Did I really start the quarrel? I wasn’t squabbling, but requesting. His whole body posture and tone had been quite vile and I chided myself for not completing my exercise without asking Shambhu to knock on his door. Later I reproached myself for not giving it back to Rishi there and then.

At the time of his talking to me, the music from the apartment could barely be heard and he growled, “how can you call this loud?” I thought he had turned it down when the knock came to the door. I conceded this level wasn’t unsettling, adding that it had been much louder. He thundered “No. It wasn’t, I haven’t adjusted the levels!”, and stormed back in. As soon as he shut the doors behind him, the song began playing at a much higher decibel, such that even underwater, I could hear more than before. I don’t know if he was being vindictive and turned the volume up or whether it was on closing the door, that the sound poured out of the open window and was magnified. But, either way it was too loud and a civilized person would have been gracious, rather than being such an immature and graceless prick. He could have closed the window, and done a number of things including toning down the volume, but he just didn’t want to accommodate me. 

At fifty years plus, I had expected a mature stance, but instead, he had behaved like a pugnacious, insulting brat. I was upset. He may have lived in Sapphire longer than I, but he had only rented that apartment during or before lockdown in March 2020. I remember seeing him living elsewhere, before that. He may be a neighbour of sorts, but we hardly knew each other. Barely exchanging an occasional hello, in passing, in the four years that I have lived here. Actually he is quite unfriendly and doesn’t acknowledge most of my greetings. He is one of those that refused to wear a mask at the height of Covid and doesn’t do so now either. Basically we have almost nothing to do with each other and for him to make an absolute statement about me – “always finding fault” was neither appropriate nor necessary. It may have been expressed to disarm and put me on the backfoot, which it probably did. And was another grouse with myself, which started the journal diatribe the next day, that I had not retorted with a few of my own insults.

I hadn’t, but had been upset at the exchange. So fumed and cursed inwardly, finished my swim and walked back to my side of the complex. Tired out by the exercise yet refreshed from the stress of the day, I was nonetheless angry. I did healing and thought I had put the raging feelings to rest. However, the next morning, writing in my journal, I found myself going on and on about the incident. Perplexed by how much the issue had bothered me, I just didn’t know how to put it away. He had passed judgement on me for citing his music too loud. Making it out that the fault was mine, rather than even trying to accommodate a neighbour who was well within her rights. I could have voiced half a dozen things about him, that were equally facetious but I barely spoke three sentences and that too in a very calm and controlled voice and volume, unlike his shouting  and livid stance. A needlessly exaggerated one that reeked of some kind of personality disorder. His total disregard for my feelings and need as expressed, added to an inability to even consider that he was being difficult and unnecessarily so, plus intimidating rather than do the decent thing, seemed nothing short of narcissism.

 I can blame the swimming exertion for my restrained stance.  The rest of what I wanted to say, but didn’t then, was coming out now. It went on for an hour and I was getting irate that this ridiculous episode was bothering me so much. But, why was I reproaching myself for this?

I have faced this kind of mindset again  and again, for similar issues, no matter where I live - Delhi, Gurgaon or Goa. The attitude of Indians, especially male,  is that they are playing music in their home so how can I dictate the volume. That I can hear this and it is disturbing, is my problem, not theirs. Noise pollution has been noted to have psychological impact and therefore the Supreme Court of India has issued ordinances but chauvinistic Indian men like Rishi don’t recognise anything but the dictates of their misguided egos. 

Presently, two young girls are staying next door to me. The apartments are built such that I can hear their conversations while they sit on the verandah. I generally open the window and explain this to most guests who rent that apartment and almost everyone is  understanding and cooperative. These girls certainly were. If I saw them taking a call, when I went to open my bedroom window, I would delay doing so. If they saw that I had opened it, they would go inside. This was civilized and neighbourly – not like the uncouth assertion of a middle-aged man, where you would expect greater maturity.   

But, I had had enough of this conversation with myself. I was getting nowhere, so I decided to meditate. It was time for my day-time meditation anyway. And that is when the penny struck. It isn’t something I didn’t know. It wasn’t something  that every spiritual master doesn’t talk about, but it was a realization that filled every bone, cell and muscle of my being with its indisputable wisdom. In meditation, the focus on the breath, coming in and out from the 'Ajna' Chakra, takes one into a space of utter peace and love. When I touched that space, that Sunday morning,  I suddenly realised that the mind needs logic and reason to satisfy it and serenity cannot be found this way. Nothing silences the mind – not for long at any rate and the dialogue within goes on and on. I understood in that moment that the only way to find peace was to go deep, into this sublime space where nothing mattered. 

When I came out of meditation, the anger had gone. I had learned something profound and there was gratitude for that. I felt so amazingly at peace, that is, until the mind started again. In accordance with the perception that everything was okay, because the still and calm essence of ones being doesn’t have any preferences, it just is. In keeping with this wisdom, thoughts  and feelings need not be denied their assertion, so I let them have their say. 

All said and done, I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with my discomfort with the way things had unfolded that evening. I couldn’t find any satisfying rationale to put the man’s behaviour into perspective nor my own posture of silence in the face of his overtly confrontational attitude. I had experienced this too often in my life, in various guises, to be content at my reticence. I could find momentary peace through meditation, but living in this world, one is left with little choice but to accept the senseless behaviour of others, but we must also honour our own stance. Accept what is felt and needs expression, without repression or censorship. 

I was pissed off! And that was okay.