Sunday, December 6, 2009

Mrs. R strikes again... Noise, noise, noise...

Ug. I'm on the verge of collapsing today, migraine and a loss of sleep... I can't even see the computer screen clearly, it's wavering in front of my face.

Unfortunately, it was our neighbor, the horrible, wicked, nasty, bitter Mrs. R. again...

The 12 days of mourning rites are still going on in her apartment for her recently deceased husband. Last night was some big event and in the afternoon the caterers came in one of the loudest Tempos I've ever heard. I tried to scream over its noise, but couldn't hear myself.

They made noise cooking till pretty late, or at least, later than I stayed up. I slept in the bedroom on the other side of the apartment, and closed all the windows so it wasn't too bad. The Tempo never came back again in the night, otherwise I don't doubt I would've woken up.

But then at 4am in the morning they started making noise in the stairwell, bringing the gas cylinder down to the elevator, banging it on every step outside our door (our elevator only goes to every other floor, since the front and back floors are staggered).

Then under our master bedroom the caterers and the guests' drivers started hollering, ordering, banging, clanging, scraping, pounding, grinding and almost any other cooking sound imaginable. A deafening racket with no escape on either side of the building.

A couple of times when they were yelling to each other I opened the window to "sssshhhh" them (which was a sign I was really pissed off, I'm normally too shy for that sort of thing) but either they never heard me or the one time one looked up, shook his fist at me and yelled a nasty vulgarity (one that one of my friends taught me before my first trip to India, which others said I'd better not use unless I was armed to defend myself...)

When I left for work and opened the bedroom door, Leena was wide awake and looked awful, not having had a wink of sleep for hours, due to all the noise, and not having gone to bed as early as I did...

Many other neighbors (or at least the ones we're on speaking terms with...) have complained to Leena about Mrs. R. and her guests taking over the building. People come out of their flats to find drivers and servants sleeping by their doors, in the lobby, in the parking area, on the roof, all over the place. The ones living below Mrs. R. mentioned that all night Mrs. R. and her guests, other family, probably, talk and shout and fight late into the night over Mr. R.'s will, everyone believing they're entitled to more and everyone else entitled to less...

Back when Mrs. R. ran the building society she called the police if other people's guests parked inside the premises and she hated anyone else's people making noise. Now that she doesn't, it's her staff that are some of the most obnoxious around. We sent her a note a couple of years ago politely asking her to ask her staff not to drink, smoke, play cards and talk loudly late into the night in her garage, which is right under our master bedroom. She didn't reply directly to us, we got a letter from her lawyer telling us if we persisted in false accusations she would sue us in court.

I'm tempted to ask her, if I see her, "who died and made you queen?". It's easy to riff on death-oriented jokes when you've been betrayed, offended and insulted by the widow, for whom you've lost all respect...

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