Love thy neighbor

In the Indian community, the neighbors are probably the most important people after the first relatives. And in some cases they are even more important than family. Neighbors in India make it their own business to make sure of your well being, offer help in crisis situations and lend an eager ear when you feel like gossiping.

It’s actually difficult to understand this concept if you haven’t really lived in India for a while, but I’ll try my best to explain. As a rule women neighbors (especially if they are housewives and not working) spend a considerable amount of their time in finding out what is happening in everyone else’s family in the neighborhood through a very efficient grapevine. And when they fail to get the information they require they wouldn’t hesitate to walk into your home and conversationally ask you directly about it. They know who visits your house, at what time, what new assets you have acquired (and this becomes a source of envy and is immediately demanded from the poor husband!) and generally everything that goes on in your house.

Of course there are always exceptions. There are the “Good neighbors” even if they are few. Such neighbors mean no harm, all they want is a little company to spend their lonely afternoons, borrow recipes and indulge in some harmless gossip. I have been fortunate enough to have come across a lot of such “good neighbors”. They have looked after us when our parents weren’t home, fed us our favorite dishes and have enthusiastically shared our good news. I remember a time when I had just started working and had moved into a rented house. It was the first time in my life that I was staying alone and not having a roommate. I found the responsibilities a bit too much to handle at first since I had really long working hours. Fortunately for me, the family staying across from me was really sweet and they volunteered to help me with everything, finding me a cleaning lady, collecting my mails and letting me borrow sugar whenever I ran out of it.

I have also come across a few unpleasant neighbors during my single years. It’s especially difficult for single people to rent a place in India, since the neighbors have all kinds of prejudices. I’d rented an apartment once and the neighbors used to keep an eye on me like spies. I was shocked when once the apartment owner came to meet me and said the neighbors complained I came home too late and had a lot of male friends who came to visit. Well it sure was unpleasant but there wasn’t much I could do about it and I tried to keep low key in order to not draw any more attention to myself.

Love them or hate them but you definitely cant ignore them. For all the bad experiences I do try to be thankful for the handful of good ones. And if at all you have to live in India some time in the future and need some information, you know who to turn to!

Linus Orakles
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