Chapel Hill shooting: Parking woes don't always attract foes
That the Chapel Hill killings could be an outcome of parking dispute does not surprise me at all. After all, I live in a city which has recorded 15 deaths, and many times more violent clashes, in the past five years due to parking quarrels. Whether there is a hate-crime angle to this tragedy, I do not know for sure as yet. As somebody looking for a safe parking spot every evening, what I do know is that the very exercise of parking a car has tremendous potential for engrossing utter strangers in close engagement.
Not always violent.
And no, I'm not talking about parking lot romances either.
Last summer, I moved in with my sister who then occupied a beautiful barsaati in Lajpat Nagar. Moving out from a quiet neighbourhood overlooking the gorgeous Lodi Garden was painful enough but what destroyed me was the parking blues. As a woman driver, the safety of my body is as much a concern as the scratches on my car. I began to slyly park my car at other people's self-designated spots around my building. This was to avoid long lonely walks, sometimes performing acrobatic tricks with ten shopping bags and 20 growling stray dogs in tow, from the main road in the middle of the night.
Within a week of my moving in, the inevitable "parking dispute" stared me in the face. The young man next door accosted me for usurping his space and I retorted that it was "Free Parking". He lashed out saying that parking in the colony was only for the owners and not tenants. That dealt a blow to my socialist ego and I turned into a virago, back parking like a boss. (Yes, we women can do it!) After a bitter verbal volley, I asked him if he or his ancestors had paid for the parking spot. He replied with a menacing look that I was nobody to demand an answer and left agitated.
At this juncture it is necessary to make full disclosure about identities. My next door neighbour was a Kashmiri Muslim while the multiple stickers on my car conspicuously bestow an "Army" identity on me. Let me also share here that once an ultra-Left colleague of mine refused to sit in my car after seeing the ARMY sticker on it.
After that bitter argument, I began to avoid him and started space hunting. Within one week, my tally of high to low intensity skirmishes with various "owners" reached five. I realised that it was much better to deal with one person than take on the entire neighbourhood. One evening I pressed his doorbell rehearsing my passive aggressive stance to resolve the parking issue once and for all. He was surprised to see me and I quickly wore my brightest smile despite a long day at work. My first words were, "I'm sorry for that day." That did the trick and he apologised too. Like good neighbours, we worked upon a solution. I was now to park my car behind his with a promise of removing it every morning at his office hour. I was ecstatic at my victory though it came at the cost of going up and down four flights of dangerous stairs every morning upon seeing his missed call.
We began to exchange pleasantries during these car-shifting drills. Once my phone was on silent mode and it got him late for office. I sent an apologetic text to which he replied that he was now struggling with a flat tyre in the middle of the road. Bad day indeed! When my husband visited me on Eid, he extended us the customary invite which I politely declined due to prior commitments. And then came the Kashmir floods. He had once casually shared how his family is getting their old house in Srinagar renovated. His brother was supervising the construction. Despite 35 years of living in that Lajpat Nagar house, their heart still remained in Kashmir. I texted him to ask if they needed any help getting in touch with their kin. The husband could have tried to facilitate something in those times of communication breakdown. He sent a lengthy anguished sms about the plight of his relatives and thanked for offering help.
I moved out next month. But not before getting him late one more time. My last text to him was, "Hello! I'm very sorry to make you wait in the morning. The stupid phone was on silent. Good news for you is that I'm shifting out next month. :-/" To this he replied, "It's alright. Happens. And I totally disagree with the content being termed as Gud News." Later, he promised to call me for his wedding. He was surprised that I knew so much about the wazwan.
Our respective identities could have easily lent themselves to be appropriated, had the first argument turned violent. When other neighbours got to know of it, a woman, who never shared her own space with me, urged me to file a police complaint. "Tabhiaqlthikaneaayegi in logon ki." I am glad that I did not. It earned me a friendly neighbour whose mother kept scolding him for not being nice to me that evening.
Thousand miles away in Chapel Hill, identity and parking quarrel angles are being investigated, while three young souls rest in peace.