A video of a woman clanging a gong behind her neighbour who was performing a prayer outside of his doorway has gone viral on social media.
The video was first posted on Facebook by Livanesh Ramu on Wednesday (9 June), which has garnered over 35k views and 1.2k likes at the time of writing.
In the video, Mr Ramu was seen ringing a small bell and performing prayer rites outside of his own doorway, while a woman appears behind him, bend down and picked up a stick to strike a gong repeatedly.
Mr Ramu continued to perform his prayer rites with calmness, despite the woman aggressively hitting the gong over and over again behind him.
The woman eventually leaves the doorway and head back into her unit.
The ringing of a bell is a tradition in Hindu prayers, which is believed to get rid of all demonic forces and allow the divine to enter the worshipper.
Mr Ramu highlighted in his post that his family has lived in the unit for more than 20 years, and there have never been any issues when performing the five-minute prayer.
“Like many other Hindus this has been a part of our family’s 5-minute, twice a week prayer routine. Having lived in this home for more than 20-years we never had any issues. I guess with COVID we have a new norm…” he wrote.
In an update on the post, he thanked Singaporeans for all the support and concerned shared towards him and his family during this difficult period. He also shared that the Singapore Police Force has reached out to his family and is coordinating with them at the moment.
Netizens call the woman “the rudest neighbour in Singapore”
Penning their thoughts under the comment section of Mothership’s Facebook post, many netizens scorned the woman for being “disrespectful” to Mr Ramu, calling her “the rudest neighbour in Singapore” due to her “childish act”.
One Facebook user commented that he “felt disgraced” by the woman’s behaviour, and that she “completely not fit” to live in a diverse country like Singapore as she showed “no respect” for other people’s religion.
Another user wrote: “This is the rudest neighbour in Singapore. If u wan people to respect your religion, learn to respect other religion first…”
Meanwhile, several netizens questioned what triggered her to behave in such a way after more than 20 years Mr Ramu’s family has been living there. They opined that the families should instead communicate and talk it out to reach a consensus.
“Livanesh shared that he has no issues for 20 years. Then why now? unless it is a new neighbour. Pls feed us with more info. Anyway, its not a nice gesture from the lady neighbour,” one netizen wrote.
