Who makes a good neighbour

Few will admit it, but we seldom view our neighbours favourably. Instead, we tend to categorise them rather unfairly: they are either troublesome or unlikeable. Frankly, few remain on good terms with their neighbours for long. The very nearness of their homes inevitably sours their relationship and keeps them at loggerheads.

Humans, of course, are as gregarious as sheep — though never as meek! The tradition of living together is age-old and so are its problems. Staying in close proximity does create friction unavoidably. For instance, I know that the frequent intrusions of a neighbour’s dog or cat — for purposes that are usually dishonourable — are an irritant to many in my locality.

These days, to be a likeable neighbour, one has to be truly tolerant and accommodating, turning a blind eye to many vexations. Indeed, good neighbourliness is a two-way route that needs to be steadfastly cultivated. Among other things, it includes lending your neighbour a bowl of sugar and forgetting all about it, patiently thumbing through his collection of postage stamps, though philately and you are poles apart, not letting your dog bark the neighbourhood awake at night, ensuring your cat doesn’t raid your neighbour’s kitchen, letting their dogs freely fertilise your lawn or hose down your prized dahlias without raising a hue and cry about it. In fact, there are scores of such triggers that can snowball into a confrontation between neighbours.

Admittedly, some neighbours do test the limits of one’s tolerance. Some are prone to prying into one’s family affairs, usually through domestics. Some irk you by practising their musical or singing skills late into the night. Once in Kochi, I saw a housewife in a third-floor flat thoughtlessly dust off a doormat from her balcony just as her neighbour emerged from below — leaving him not exactly confetti-covered and starry-eyed!

So who’s the bigger nuisance, your neighbours or you? We need to remember that our neighbours will probably judge us by an even harsher yardstick than the one we use for them. Perhaps we conveniently forget that we, too, are neighbours to others whom we inconvenience knowingly or unknowingly. Maybe, rather than trying to ‘reform’ our neighbours, we need to ‘reform’ ourselves into better and more tolerant neighbours. For as George Bernard Shaw sagaciously opined, ‘The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.’ And GK Chesterton did have a point when he shrewdly observed, ‘The Bible tells us to love our neighbours and our enemies, probably because they are generally the same people.’

Above all, we need to remember that having helpful neighbours is a blessing as much as being a good and tolerant neighbour is a virtue.