Letters: Respecting privacy

This refers to the column "Cosmopolitan at heart?" (Worm's Eye View, November 1). I understand and sympathise with the author in general about the "silly" regional egoistic turf wars.

Having said that, I also sympathise with the neighbour. I would definitely not want commercial activity, even if it is a paediatric clinic, next door in an apartment. We long for peace and a little bit of privacy at least when we are at home.

It seems from a very neutral point of view that the author, probably to support his/her mother, chose to brush this complaint into the same "regional issues slot".

My dad is a practising doctor and all his life he practised at home as well. But it is an independent home. In apartments, it is just not the same and it is important we respect the little privacy that a neighbour needs.

Anil Sai Kumar Kadapa

The author replies: Ma's practice creates about as much inconvenience as the bawling of an infant in pain is capable of creating. Behind a shut door it would me impossible to hear a sound. As I said in the piece, there are people who run creches and boutiques from homes in the complex, and nobody raises an objection. The complainant himself sells sweets from home. When woodwork was done by another family on our floor, he was unhappy because of the noise. I guess for people like that it is better to live in an independent house. More to the point, creches and doctors fulfil a social need, so even if they create an inconvenience, they should be tolerated.

As for me imagining things, there are other businesses that are run from home but are not objected to, so it is natural to assume that there is something more to it than meets the eye.

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