When community ends at the gate

We recently attended a few Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at the homes of friends in our condominium complex. Tower lobbies were buzzing with people in their best ethnic wear, carrying offerings for Lord Ganesh. At one home, our host had invited a flautist friend, who rendered a few bhajans on his flute. These intimate gatherings also allowed guests to mingle. Such gatherings at home are, of course, nothing new. What made me think was something else. The larger community celebration itself appears to be changing. Increasingly, in our urban centres, it seems to be moving from the wider neighbourhood into gated residential complexes. I remember that the only large community celebration during my childhood was the Ram Leela, held on whichever was the biggest available ground in the neighbourhood. Much later, I witnessed the Durga Puja pandals in the east, Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in the west and Dussehra festivities in the south. Beyond their religious and cultural significance, they performed another function. Minor acquaintances, or even strangers, bumped into each other. Conversations began. Some developed into lifelong relationships. There were no gates defining who belonged to that community.

Urban living has changed since then. High-rise condominium complexes have created neighbourhoods of their own, comprising hundreds or thousands of families. Almost everything we need is available within the boundaries. Groceries and meals arrive at our doors. There are shops, clubs, gyms and play areas. We want entertainment within the complex and, increasingly, even religious places and festivities within walking distance of our homes.

Convenience is undoubtedly a part of this change. Security is another. After a tiring day, few of us want to travel across the city for something that can be found downstairs. But I sometimes wonder whether, without consciously intending it, we are also shrinking the boundaries of what we consider our community. The neighbourhood once extended beyond the people we knew. A festival took us into public spaces where we encountered people from different backgrounds and circumstances. Today, the gates of a condominium can quietly determine whom we meet, whom our children play with and, increasingly, whom we celebrate with.

Digital technology may be reinforcing this tendency in another way. Residential groups allow us to communicate instantly and have made community management far easier. But they have also given everyone the ability to critique virtually every decision immediately. Resident welfare associations can consequently find themselves trying to accommodate every demand and appease every section, forgetting that this is rarely possible. The discussion then becomes increasingly about what should or should not happen inside our gates.

None of this means that condominium communities are undesirable. They provide companionship, security and a sense of familiarity that is valuable in increasingly impersonal cities. Nor is there anything wrong with celebrating festivals within them. The issue is whether these communities are becoming substitutes for the wider neighbourhood rather than a part of it. Perhaps the change is subtle enough for us not to notice. The neighbourhood becomes the condominium, the condominium becomes the tower, and gradually our social world begins to end at the gate.

I enjoyed those intimate Ganesh Chaturthi evenings immensely. Yet they left me with a question quite unrelated to the celebrations themselves. Are the gates around our homes also slowly becoming gates around our idea of community? And if everything we need — social, cultural, recreational and even religious — must increasingly come within those gates, are we developing an exclusivity without even recognising it?

The writer is a founder of Kala - Krazy About Literature And Arts, and is an author, speaker, coach, arbitrator and strategy consultant; Views presented are personal.