Dear Agony Akka,
I am a 43-year-old marketing executive staying in three-storied apartment building. Myself, wife and two teenage children are living on first floor. Landlord is living in opposite flat. The second-floor flat has become vacant recently. Previous tenant Krishnan moved out because he lost job and could not pay rent. He was a wonderful man. We used to play rummy and drink rum on Fridays after sending our better halves to the temple, haha! Now, daily I am seeing our building owner, a perfect gentleman, struggling with undesirable tenants wanting flat. Sometimes they are non-veg people — how to tolerate smells, you tell me? Sometimes they are young woman wanting to live alone. How their parents are letting, I don’t know. Tomorrow if something happens, who will take blame? So only he is turning them all down. But during society meeting last week, ground-floor couple is criticising building owner like anything. Asking him to be more tolerant. You please tell me, is there limit to toleration or not?
— Righteous As Hell
Dear RAH
First of all, the best place to live is in an independent bungalow. Nobody but family members plus your own garden means you don’t have to steal the neighbour’s flowers for puja and you also get a backdoor entry for cleaning persons. You are probably asking, then why am I living in an apartment complex? That’s because my two younger brothers and one sister insisted on selling the bungalow our father bequeathed and I had to comply. I had not realised that I was nursing snakes in my bosom. But let me not distract you with these images.
Let’s see now. Perhaps your rummy-playing friend beats his wife? Maybe third-floor woman ill-treats her cook? You may or may not know these things, but it is not troubling you or your building owner. Why? I will tell you why. Because you are thinking that eating non-veg food or being single is the biggest crime of all. You must get rid of this silly idea.
Take a deep breath and repeat after me: ‘Non-veg people are harmless. Single people are harmless.’ This is a powerful mantra. You must say it three times each during your morning and evening walks. Teach it to your building owner. It will calm him down and give peace of mind.
I can see that your nose is troubling you a lot. I agree that the smell of fish being neutralised in hot mustard oil is very disturbing to untrained nasal cavities. But so is the smell of the Cooum on a hot summer’s day as it wafts into your car when you’re driving over Adyar Bridge. If you can live with periodic puffs of Cooum breath, you can live with occasional fish-fry fragrance too. Try it. It might be invigorating and give an extra bounce to your step. Who knows, maybe like tobacco smoke you can imbibe Omega-3 by breathing it into your pure veg lungs. O3 is good for cancer, arthritis and whatnot.
As for single tenants, being unmarried hasn’t been declared illegal yet. Even the Supreme Court hasn’t complained of laws against singles “lacking teeth”. Being unmarried and living alone does not turn people into dangerous criminals and you must not be afraid. The worst they can do is party with friends. Horror of horrors, these might be friends of the opposite sex. They might even drink! But if you calm down and repeat that mantra I taught you, you will find that you, your family and the house owner will escape unscathed from this terrifying experience.
— AA
agony.akka@gmail.com