One of my neighbouring houses has a long long driveway.
The white gate in the middle, and the drive way goes on maybe double what's visible.
The guy in the house will come with his car, and honk for the watchman to open the gate. The watchman is this really bent over, skinny old village guy (my bias, because he wears only dhothi ). He's mostly at the gate, under the tree outside, but when it's raining I guess he's somewhere nearer the main house. It then takes him a good two minutes to hobble nobble his way to the gate.
Last night, it's half past 12, and I happened to be standing in the balcony and enjoying the time of night and the drizzle. This guy comes and honks....within two seconds he honks again, and again. He's literally disturbing the entire neighbourhood.
The fourth honk, and I can feel my blood pressure going up. I was ready to protest all the way from my balcony (adding to waking up the neighborhood), when I saw the watchman slowly making his way to the gate.
And I'm thinking....what would it take for him to give the watchman the two minutes before his second honk? In fact, why even the first. Could he have just flashed his headlight? Or maybe think that the old man might have dozed off, and get his ass off the car to open the gate himself.
I wonder, is it just insensitive......to the old man, to the neighbors, to the quiet and serenity of midnight, or is he just plain bloody stupid.
It's at moments like these that I find it hard to be non judgmental :)
I so totally agree with you! We have a society gate and if a watchman does not see the car coming up, there are temper tantrums all over, even if the car had to pause! And sadly, when you are not conscious, it imbibes into you so surreptitiously as acceptable behaviour!
ReplyDeleteYep, layers and layers of awareness. Puts us on alert to watch ourselves too for sure.
ReplyDelete