Living in flats in a housing complex is akin to living in an extended joint family. Here the family is composed of individual units of brothers and sisters Residents of each unit have been maintaining separate identity of their own inheriting their regional/cultural/religious/culinary practices. Residents are addressed as “Dada/Dadi (Grandparents from father’s side), Nana/Nani (Grandparents from mother’s side), Uncle/Auntie, Bhaiya/Didi (Elder brother/sister) depending on their age. Even if one is not so social to pay a visit to the families living in the complex due to time constraints or other factors, exchanging greetings/pleasantries in the morning or evening or whenever one is standing in the balcony/going to the shop/temple/school/college is a regular phenomenon. Further in case any members of a flat falls sick/aged one staying alone, the residents of the neighbouring flats always come forward to extend a helping hand be it like carrying shopping bag/giving a lift to the station etc. In case offsprings are out of town due to their job commitments, efforts are made by the neighbouring residents to fill their void as far as possible. If grandparents are not staying with the family, the kids develop grandparental attachment/affection with the aged people living in the next-door flats.

The residents feel safe going out of town just locking the flats as it becomes the moral responsibility of the neighbouring flats to keep watch on the locked ones. Moreover whenever the flat owner comes back with his family from long sojourns they are generally greeted with refreshments from the neighbouring ones. Culinary practices also find universal acceptance. Everyone comes to know Bengali Rasogulla (spongy round sweetmeat made of casein), Punjabi Chhole/Bature (Spicy curried preparation of whole Bengal gram with fried round puries made from kneaded wheat flour after fermentation), Maharashtrian Dalbati (curried preparation of lentils with baked round ball from kneaded wheat flour), South Indian Idli/Sambar/Dosa, so on and so forth.

During happy occasions like festivals/marriages, all the residents of the flats join together in celebrations. Thus Holi, Dussehra, Deepawali, Id, Guru Nanak’s Birthday and Christmas are celebrated with pomp and gaiety throughout the year irrespective of individual affiliation to any particular community. Again, in case of situations like demise of any one of the residents a gloom hangs over the residents of all the flats.

Of course there are occasional hiccups like loud sound of TV/music system/late night parties but these are tackled by friendly intervention.

In a nutshell, living in flats teaches us fellow feeling, tolerance, universal brotherhood, respect for all religions and unity in diversity.

However the underlying principle to be borne in mind as taught in Bible is: “Love thy neighbour as thyself”.