One of the trials of living in an organized society is that next door to you is that most inconsiderate of all human beings - your neighbour. In the smaller towns, the irritating effects of this cheek-by-jowl existence is somewhat mollified by houses being sensibly separated by varying expanses of space. But in the cosmopolitan cities, neighbours surround you in suffocating closeness. They are below you, above you and on all sides of you.

Visions of instant employment and speedy prosperity fill the big cities with swarms of scrabbling humanity. And in no time at all, the worst of them are firmly installed in the flats next to yours. The fact that you, in turn, are somebody's neighbour need not duly concern you. After all, it goes without saying that you, of course, are the ideal neighbour - the very essence of consideration, tact and sterling goodness.

Neighbours, to use an expressive idiom, are a `pain in the neck'. As many of you will testify, they seem to spend all their time conspiring to annoy you. Neighbours are known for perversely eternally borrowing things. The men tramp round the house like a herd of elephants on a rampage. They also throw frequent parties that completely shatter your hopes of getting to bed before dawn.

Their children take the keenest delight in flinging things against the walls and banging lustily on toy drums. Their dogs either scare you witless or ruin your potted plants. And their servants, not to be outdone, discuss your most intimate affairs in the nearest teashop. This agonizing state of affairs poses a problem. How are you to live with neighbours who seem to be devoid of all human feeling? How are you to ‘neutralize’ the disastrous effects that neighbours can have on your nervous system? How can you cling on to your sanity?

Packing bag and baggage and moving away is not always possible unless you happen to be rich enough to pay house agents, furniture movers, advance rentals, refundable deposits and other less mentionable monetary inducements. While I readily admit that several people are wealthy enough to do just this, the action displays a certain lack of endurance and fortitude. It is almost like `running away'. Therefore, in order to save yourself the bother and embarrassment of moving, you should stubbornly hold your ground. And it is here that the art of putting up with neighbours proves invaluable, for it renders you immune to their annoyances and enables you to live serenely even in the midst of chaos.

The cardinal rule is this: Do not become too friendly, too familiar or too intimate with your neighbours until you have known them for at least three years. Do not gush over them like a benevolent genie and say dangerous things like, “let me know if I can be of any help to you.” Being nice to newly acquired neighbours is fatal. It is like providing the fat in which you yourself will be fried.

A very good bachelor friend of mine made the dreadful mistake of “being nice” to a family who moved in next door to him. He now heartily regrets his foolishness. For the people concerned now invade his house at all hours, switch on his radio, borrow his newspapers, raid his refrigerator, and make cutting remarks about his household linen. For this reason your attitude towards new neighbours should be one of steely reserve. You should look at them with a calculated air of total indifference. Much in the manner of a minister looking at a grievance-list.

Curb ruthlessly the impulse to smile at them. Give monosyllabic to their attempts at small talk. Be deliberately indistinct and move out of range and away, as quickly as possible. It is better to be thought a bore and left in peace than to be inundated with tumbling hordes of neighbours coming in to tell you how nice you are. Where possible, discourage entry. In other words, when there's a knock on the door, never open it wide and invite the visiting neighbour in. Open it a mere inch or two, inspect the person as if you suspect his motives and then sidle outside to enquire what he wants.

If you become an expert in this technique, your neighbours need never lay eyes on the sacred interior of your house or flat. This method is especially recommended when dealing with neighbours (a) who want to relate to you the sordid details of some personal misfortune, (b) who want to weep on your shoulder for sympathy, (c) who want to borrow ten rupees till payday and (d) who want to discuss the glaring deficiencies in the building's water supply.

Keep your neighbour's children at a tolerable distance. The younger they are the greater should be the distance. It is absolute folly to frivously flutter your fingers at them, or invite them into your house for a lemonade or of the attempt to win them over with handfuls of sweets. Such behaviour on your part could result in the alarming prospect of having your neighbour's children repeatedly knocking at your door, with expectant eyes, outstretched palms or loud cries of infantile delight.

The children living around you should be studiously ignored. Their attempts to become friendly should be strongly resisted. Otherwise you have utterly no hope of becoming a successful student of this course.

Neighbours who come to borrow things are by no means easy to refuse. Some of them have obtained a remarkable proficiency in their methods. The commodity almost always sought after is, of course, money. Perhaps the most effective manner of refusing is to bring in that old life-saver “the principle of the thing”. Just say, “Sorry, old chap, but I never lend money. It's a principle of mine.”

If necessary, you can launch into a spirited lecture on the indisputable fact that money “causes trouble between friends”, Convey, if you can, the impression that you treasure his friendship so much that you would not dare risk the loss of it by descending to the loathsome practice of lending money. However, when dealing with someone who wants an item of grocery such as sugar, tea leaves, coffee powder and so on the best method is to say that you have yourself “just run out” of the commodity concerned.

We come now to noisy neighbours - people from whose premises emerge all sorts of sounds including creaks and clatters, screeches and screams, rumbles and roars, and outright explosions. These, admittedly, are difficult neighbours to tolerate and I can only advise that you either (a) retaliate by creating a few resounding detonations of your own (b) retire to the remotest corner of your house with cotton-wool in your ears and wait till the hullabaloo subsides or (c) find some outside chore that needs doing and do it.

Then, of course, there are neighbours who seem to spend every waking moment quarreling mightily at the top of their voices. These quarrels can range from indignant verbal exchange to screaming, knock-down brawls. Sometimes, the choicest of languages hurtles through the air, together with furniture, crockery and bleeding bodies.My friends if your neighbours come into this category you have my deepest sympathy. A word of caution. Never interfere, or you may find yourself languishing for weeks in a hospital bed.

It is also inadvisable to lodge complaints at the nearest police station, unless one of the officers you know happens to be six feet tall, with a fifty inch chest, a ruthless truncheon and an uncle who knows every inch of the processes of law.

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