When civility stops at the gate |
A pleasant May drizzle had just passed, and I was out for my morning walk with my wife within the society premises. The roads were still wet, but that did not concern me much, until a car drove through a puddle and splashed water all over us, leaving our trousers soaked. What stayed with me even more than the sudden discomfort, however, was the manner in which the car simply drove on without slowing down, without so much as a glance in the rear-view mirror, and without any hint of an apologetic smile or a raised hand that might have acknowledged what had just happened.
Was my expectation unreasonable? I did not think so, especially considering that we live in a well-to-do condominium inhabited by people who are, by all conventional measures, educated professionals in corporates and government offices, neighbours who are almost an extended family, and yet, in that brief........