Fences

Fences

The American poet Robert Frost’s famous poem Mending Wall ends with this line. ‘Good fences make good neighbors.' True indeed, yet inapt in this country because there are hardly any fences at all anywhere, at least between houses. I am told that those who patronize canine fraternity of which there are immense varieties here, are only entitled to have wooden fences around their property obviously to protect innocent wayfarers. The national protocol encourages citizens to maintain cordiality but closed doors and people in house-arrest don’t get to know each other. The strangers smile at each other on walkways but that rule is probably not applicable to neighbours. Well, coming back to fences, the territory of every house is a matter of conjecture mutely agreed upon. You may own a house and be at liberty to make whatever changes within the house but you are not supposed to alter the back yard to suit your whims and fancies. Even the lawn ought to be maintained reasonably well and in harmony with your neighbourhood lest you would end up paying an imposed penalty. The inmates are seldom called upon to unlock their front doors except for a rare acquaintance or a courier man. All other less important mails are stacked in front of the house in a grotesque rain protected compartment. Compared to sturdy concrete structures back home, the houses usually with  superfluous basements look brittle with wooden floor and card board walls. The garden and landscape may be designed to suit your taste but strictly complying with the town strictures.Since  I began with Frost, let me close this with another American author- Mark Twain, who was probably commenting about the apartment culture, “The partitions of the houses were so thin we could hear the women occupants of adjoining rooms changing their minds.”