Communal space

There is an Indian family living on the ground floor of my block in the condo. They moved here about a year or so ago; a couple with their elderly parents and a boy who must be about 2 years old. The family dotes on the boy, and they are always sitting out at the common stair area. Now this area is really a sterile stair landing and mail box corner, helmed in with blank walls and the front doors of 4 apartments. The area outside their apartment is unshaded turfing. This area is often buzzing with mozzies, especially in early evening. In spite of this, the Indian family would be seen sitting out here, either on the steps of the landing, or next to the drain. They would also occasionally lay out some beans on a plastic mattress to sun it on the concrete apron. Sometimes, they would walk the child, and then they would sit on the road side curb next to the guard house, watching the cars go by.

I find all this very appealing. I see the world through their eyes, and can empathize with them. I once saw the elderly parent walking back from the groceries a long way out from our condo, and offered him a ride in the car. But he declined. It’s alright, I said, we live in the same block. Yes, thank you, he said, but I prefer the walk.

They make me rethink about communal space, especially about how our external spaces in the condo are lifeless and left-over after-thoughts which nobody can use. It makes me think about how the condo would be transformed if we could just demolish the blank walls of the ground floor units and let them extend to outdoors. Of course, it would violate the Building Act, and infringes on “common” property, but it is precisely these invisible boundaries that kills the life of the “common” area. Somewhere along the way of cleaning up the slums, of not allowing residents to hang laundry outside, of not putting their plants or aquariums outside, we forgot about the outside, and turned every residential life inwards, to their private corners, within 4 walls. Perhaps it’s timely now to relook into this, and regain the external wasteland that is such as cherished space in India.

Chup