Love Thy Neighbour

Witnessed a gruesome accident last night. Was walking back from a neighbour-friend’s jazz concert at one of our in-the-neighbourhood nightclubs, down one of our nicer, wider crescent colony lanes when we (another friend, a non-neighbour and I) spotted a couple trying to yank open their Santro with spatula, ruler and so on. Stopping to offer help, entirely by instinct and out of the goodness that shamelessly parades itself even when incompetence abounds (I have no clue about car mechanics and tricks), I make small talk with the young couple. Suddenly we heard a screech more animated than believable and I caught, in the corner of my eye, a silhouette being flung into the air and landing with a thud, muffled only by the amplified screech of a White Toyota Innova. A few seconds later it’s clear that someone’s been badly hit by the racing vehicle and the few people around at that time in the night collect around him. I send my friend to have a look, frustratingly conscious of my many episodes of fainting at the sight of others’ blood and injuries. While people rush out and collect around the injured watchman, I speak with one of the family members and talk about ambulances and distances to the nearest hospital. Private hospital we agree, and aunty (presumably mum to the young man in the couple) assures me all will be fine as they are a family of doctors, young man included and that “Uncle” will also go with him. Meanwhile friend reports that he is taken care of, is bleeding but there are people around and that the Innova driver has also stopped and is part of the (at)tending crowd. I use my phone to ring ambulance, unsuccessfully trying to ring the Fortis toll-free number, trying Max instead after that. Also make suggestions like “bring towels”, “get ice” and say a million silent prayers all the same. Friend whispers into my ear suggesting that we leave immediately as the guy is taken care of and this could be a police case and we’ll get involved unnecessarily. “NO”, I snap back at him, staring daggers, “This is where I live! You can leave if you want to, I’m going nowhere”.

Uncle ji rushes down (the family had been communicating with each other through the intercom at the gate), pulls out his own SUV and takes injured, culpable and young couple along. As they zoom away, I introduce myself to Aunty ji as someone living “just down the road Ma’am”, offer to leave my number with her to get in touch if she needs any help/ running around. “Nahin Rajé”, she reassures in indulgent Punjabi, “we’re all doctors and he’ll be fine. But thank you very much!” I half-smile, ask her name, and wish her and the rest of the family goodnight and walk homewards. Between the quick mumbling of prayers, mind wanders to my incompetence at these blood and gore situations and I feel sick at myself. Disappointed and shamed too. Am also cross with friend for suggesting the innocuous escape, and a little surprised by my immediate loyalty to the unknown doctor family’s watchman. “This is where I live”.

I love the location of my house. The area is among the nicer parts of Delhi, conveniently located and rather self-sufficient. Tree-lined boulevards criss-cross its length and breadth, and the inner lanes circumscribe rather beautiful and well-manicured ornamental parks. I brag to my friends about how I often wake up to the cooing of birds, and have had numerous sparrows and cats make our house their own. Our streets boast a variety of beautiful flowering trees: The Amaltas that marks the onset of summer, the Gulmohar weighing heavy in bloom all of autumn, the Raat-ki-rani shrubs that make the after-dinner walks such a joy, and the Jamun trees under which one always liked to crush fallen fruit on the walks back from school, looking back to see one’s purple trail.

Except for certain spells of living outside of Delhi, I’ve lived in this neighbourhood most of my life. Went to pre-school here, run by an enterprising, in fact revolutionary for the late 1980s American lady; where apart from A B C and token rhymes (mummy and papa taught me more than they did, and read me ALL fairytales by age 5!) we made pancakes in the park and vegetable block-prints in class, painted Easter eggs and saw magic shows and displays of a goat’s liver and heart and kidney (no swooning back then surprisingly). I had many friends my age in the few houses nearby, and we played all day. The greatest fun would be on Holi, when we joined forces to take on one “Tinku bhaiyya” and his cronies as far away as the other end of the street! My first confrontation with blood and gore was also here; when as a three-year-old I slipped on a neighbour’s staircase we were climbing to play with toys in “Bua ke ghar”. Neighbour uncle, brother to the Bua in question, was the only one to possess a car on the whole street and drove me to doctor’s as I cried my heart out in horror. After a hiatus of a few years (over which we lived in a few cities papa was posted in, brother was born and mum passed away) I returned and discovered the abundance of embassies in our area. Over the next few years I would walk into almost each of them, citing a school project and asking for “information on your country please” and hoping for glossy brochures, maps and flags. These would then be gladly showed to the teacher and students in class, and regardless of smirks that occasionally came my way, be treasured for what I then thought would be forever! The neighbourhood club bore witness to numerous mornings and afternoons of tennis and summer days that were spent in the club library and reading room, sheepishly completing holiday homework. The welfare association organized Holi, Diwali, Lohri and New Year’s get-togethers, to which I owe all my knowledge of North Indian festivals and customs. Later years would witness my stalking a semi-celebrity crush involving chasing him discreetly as he walked dog, writing him an 8-page letter and hiding outside his house till late hoping for him to arrive and see him picking up the letter. Of course, the mandatory walk through the neighbourhood on the day of the first monsoon showers in the city, wading through muddy ankle-deep water is an old tradition now, as is the Holi evening post-siesta and by-the-full-moon walk, inspecting the extent of pink and purple tinge on concrete drive-ways in different houses.

But I digress… So yes, back to, “This is where I live!”

The sense of almost personal concern for a fellow-inhabitant of the residential area, marginally more than what I’d certainly feel for humanity in general, caught even me by surprise. I believed that my sense of neighbourhood and community, if at all, is defined specifically by the people I have known personally and that the sharing of space is a fanciful myth in terms of its role in creating social identity. Well, in my rather snooty, snobbish and uptight neighbourhood at least. I remember distinctly the times we lived in smaller cities in apartment complexes. Everything was community and neighbourhood-centered: water and cable connections, Garba and Dandiya nights, dealing with the 1992-3 curfews, and mourning at Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. As children we found only great joy in finding all our neighbours just a shout away from our balconies. Birthday parties and Holi/Diwali brought us all together, and occasions like papa’s occasional promotions were announced by my delivering mithai to ALL the residents of the building complex. The women gathered every evening discussing their children, mothers-in-law, and whether or not to take “cable TV” while we chased frogs and girls away. Mummy’s death brought EVERY family of the entire residential complex to our house; and they genuinely offered all help, logistical and emotional that we needed to keep us from falling apart. My lasting memory of leaving our last small city lived in is when I looked out of the car and up when finally leaving to find everyone in their balconies looking down and waving at us. We came back to the Delhi house and the by-then hazy memories of our Delhi neighbours was soon refreshed and renewed. I came to Delhi not knowing a word of written Hindi (and very basic spoken), and our next-door Amma ji tutored me to near-perfection in Hindi vyaakaran over the next many years. I finally topped my school in the CBSE exams in Hindi, an accomplishment for which I owe much to Amma ji. She will always be an integral part of my childhood; least of all for the many hours I spent talking to her about her days at Allahabad University kavi sammelans with Bacchhan, or her long years of integrating into Delhi life as the city itself embraced its post-partition destiny. She served us aam ki chutney with as much energetic enthusiasm as with which she chased away marauding cats and scolded the water department officials for whimsically changing the water timings. Then there are close friends nearby: jazz musician alluded to in the beginning and journalist who inspired my trysts with blogging. Met them during Maths tuition classes in senior school, and a few years of scant communication aside, we now meet and chat and so on ever so often. There’s my first tennis mate (now quite the lawyer of town) into whose house I still walk for a glass of wine, National Geographic magazine, books, relationship advice, work frustration venting, small talk, dinner, rides to North Campus and occasional badhai mithai (not necessarily in that order). The familiar faces from the tennis courts, walking buddies, parents’ friends, the odd school/college friend and familiar strangers complete the sense of neighbourhood.

The familiarity of the space and its inhabitants though, seems increasingly as though it’s slipping away. Far from assembled audiences waving goodbyes from their balconies, the ivory-tower complex that the area is transforming into precludes much contact with or even knowledge of the next-door. I remember a rather flippant comment made by a neighbour-friend’s mum when I said that it’s a pity we don’t step out too much and it would be good to see more of their family in the neighbourhood that “This is what affluence does to you, isn’t it?” I hehe-d out of that situation, curbing the instinct to snap back, “No, it’s what you do to affluence”. As our brand of urbanization redefines space and community, life and living are changing in the process as well. As kaagaz-ki-kashti-baarish-ka-paani style nostalgic as this piece sounds thus far, I clarify; I don’t mean to be all apoplectic about the fall of social values and the decline of culture. The convenience of friends being a shout away wouldn’t strike me as much as the complete lack of privacy, were I to now live in an apartment complex with the neighbours’ balconies staring into my living space. I do not for a moment gloss over the inconvenience I felt on many occasions of receiving unsolicited advice and feedback from more hands-on neighbours, and for that reason and more, am glad that my exposure to such invasions is much lesser now. I was always annoyed at the neighbours in our Jaipur house who’d always peek from their kitchens to see who/what I was bringing home. The very legitimate qualms with the older forms of neighbourhood association must be acknowledged, especially because of the more liberating and independent and less subjugated and conformist values we eschew.

And yet, there is a very clear feeling of missing out on a sense of belonging and reaching out to someone other than one’s immediate friends and family. As the mithai plates stop exchanging hands across the partition munder (wall), Holi becomes a rain-dance-at-the-club affair and activity centres make way for toys at “Bua ke ghar” where Amma ji brought us aam ki chutney on hot summer mornings, there is a perceptible sense of loss all the same. While social networks may change form, their function may hopefully still remain intact. Our modern living allows us to break barriers of time and space in ways unimaginable to old school (my grandmother never saw her best friend Kamala she went swimming with at the Benaras-ghats after her marriage, while I’m stuck with faces I wished to have let gone of in my pending Facebook invitations). And yet, while we Skype with our migrant friends in foreign lands to get road directions in Delhi, we are hesitant to smile at the new face a few houses down, to the extent that it breeds serious insularity, if not complete distrust. Therein lies a possibility that I find far too alien and unfamiliar to our cultural psyche and that I am uneasy with. As we negotiate space and time in “modern living”, I wish we did so with a little more concern for those around, or at least taking some cognizance of them to begin with. There is, to my mind, a deep urge in all of us to reach out and surround ourselves with familiar and comforting company; and as much as new living breaks physical barriers to such company, it should not become an excuse to disregard the physical spaces and environments we inhabit. Immediately driving the injured watchman to the hospital was as reassuring as it (ideally) should be expected. Going the extra mile however, could for baby-steps, begin with a hello, an offer to carry some next-door aunty ji’s vegetable load from the Mother Dairy to her house as we lug back our own, or a joint petition against the felling of trees to widen the outer ring road, for the more utilitarian motive!

At a friend’s welome-back-to-civilisation (from the Andamans, after a year) party recently, as I sat around meekly witnessing the dance floor revelry, along came this set of green eyes in matching Anokhi block-printed short kurta. I looked again carefully, and yet ever so discreetly… quirky hairstyle I note, friendly manner; looks like he’s here alone, I deduce. I raise my perfectly-held-by-the-stem, white-wine glass, flash a half smile and immediately look away… be friendly but not too inviting, turns people off, especially Europeans, I remind myself. It was enough though; a few seconds later, I find tall man in short kurta next to my set of sofas, perhaps hoping to seem nonchalant. Smiles turn to pleasantries to disguise-discreet checking-out glances, and before I can say “manifestation”, we’re all comfy and chatty amid the loud echoes of a well-tapped-to Mauja hi mauja. Gentleman speaks in a clear, annoyingly un-accented English, like Tony Blair’s, with great eloquence; tells me he’s a dancer, and knows the host only briefly, and no one else in the room…yet, he adds, thoughtfully. Name gives away his French identity. “Vous-etes français?” I enquire in surprised anticipation. Reticent “Oui”. “D’accord! D’ou en France venez-vous?”, I carry on, hoping for more indulgence and some inquiry about how I speak the smattering of his language. I get neither, as I’m told in plain English, “Yes, I’m from such-and-such place, but have been in India for 15 years now so I’m not really connected”. How quaint, I think, reminding myself there may be more to talk to him about than the scanty displays of language I could put up on occasion. Sure enough, but a mild disappointment it was nonetheless; the snub more than his reluctance to speak French I suppose. Conversation moves to dancer-man’s trysts with academics (he has a PhD on Indian caste politics, after completing which he surrendered to the calling), broadway/bollywood gossip, the weather of late (I complain, he disagrees), anokhi and their block-print sourcing in Rajasthan and token mentions of my work, life and interests. Over dessert we swap numbers, and agree that it was “nice meeting you” and we should “definitely stay in touch”. I meant every word of it. The believed novelty of meeting “interesting people” by design, or friends playing cupid is no match to the comfort of conversation that one can strike by chance. Appreciative looks exchanged as we shake hands, the male equivalent of frivolous air-kisses.

A pity we didn’t tittle-tattle in French. Honestly, that was my second ulterior motive behind the enthusiastic interest. No, it’s not an Indian fascination for the white skin, just for some of the languages. Especially so, when the next morning there was this grand “test de passage”, a rite of passage disguised as an exam (you can study all you want, they’d ask you something you either didn’t know, or ought to have known anyway) and practiced French conversation skills could rid me of the guilt of ignoring the exam and tapping away to the nakara-nakara beats instead. So yes, foreign languages…German and Dutch etc are all ikht and tikht and tackth and isht and fenshter sounding words… such blood curdlers, I’d pass on them. Spanish… fascinating, but the last time I correctly pronounced “Chorizo”, a delectable sausage, succulent and spicy, I was accused of “speaking with a lisp dude”. Finnish, Norwegian, Flemish etc…. don’t cut ice; there must be at least as many speakers of a language as there are Delhites for it to be worth learning. Chinese, may have been a prospect was pursuing a China-based love-interest, but much water’s flown down the Hwang-Ho now. The Sorrow of China indeed.

So French it had to be, when I was contemplating choice of learning a language this time last year. Mind you, not by elimination alone, there were 3 long years in middle school spent in devoted study of the language, with keen attention to pronunciation, accent and idiosyncrasies from those early days (A joke went around in class about me correcting a classmate, “Its hrrrhh not rrrrrrhhh!”). And then there was this week-long visit to Paris mainly for the women’s semifinals matches at the French Open 2006, and a very hospitable, and even dearer friend to live with. Although I could still read and understand basic French, I couldn’t hold a conversation to save my life; imploringly instead inquiring, replete with American twang, “Paarlay Aaahng-lay?” Dismissive, or even pitiful glances from some of the snootier Parisians made me trade in the twang for sheepish smiles, and firmed the resolve to return to the language, when time permitted.

May 2007: heartbreak, accident and general boredom with (the now previous) job precipitated the need for a new life plan. The new improved me went into overdrive; driving lessons, neo-liberal Bhagwad Geeta study group in Def Col (incidentally under Parisian friend’s half-French mother’s tutelage), tennis with a vengeance, extra research moonlighting for a former Prof, more academic research/writing/field trips in the hill villages, periodic therapeutic shopping, and yes, French classes. The regularity of classes reestablished familiarity. It’s been pure indulgence; to see yourself struggling to construct a simple sentence to the effect of “Sorry madam, I don’t have anymore of these (say, tomatoes)” (Je suis desolée madame, je n’en ai plus) after spending a long day making sense of regression coefficients and the most esoteric “Econometrica” journal article (more like not making sense of…, but spending the day trying to at least). Intellectual snobbery apart, it truly is refreshing to keep the mind working and active in more ways than one or two (analyzing economic interrelationships graphically and armchair agony aunty-ing oneself for example). I once heard of this Finnish woman who spent the first 2 years after retirement learning Japanese and then the third living all over Japan, using the previous two to full effect. Even if that’s a fable, it’s the kind of myth you’d want to be inspired by… such zeal and drive at the ripe Scandinavian retirement age. What’s my excuse? So trot away I do, even on weekend early mornings in rickety auto to Lodhi Road, without much complaining, and instead replying to bemused questioners, that waking up early actually extends your weekends. It truly does.

The intellectual snobbishness of juxtaposing sentence construction with regression analysis apart, there’s great joy. You get half-insights into lives of people you’d otherwise not know. One of the “coolest” people I have met and befriended is a 14-year-old classmate: phenomenal maturity, quirkiness and appetite (literally, not for the zest of life kind of things alone, but equally for the bruschetta-types at the Big Chill). There have been dentist/ chemistry teacher/ English teacher/ BPO employee/ fashion merchandising house employee/ fellow development scribe unified in their aim to learn French: a desired immigration to the land of milk and maple. Then there was this (cheerful, almost chirpy) government department scribe-type who put me on the bus to Dilli Haat on one occasion, and insisted I start taking buses as the autos would “eat up your whole salary”. The teachers are noteworthy too, friendly always, quirky often, inspiring on occassion. This south Indian lady (a neighbour too, we discovered eventually) displays typical dignified simplicity, and has the most stunning handloom sarees collection. Regaled us with stories of how rickshaw drivers/pullers in Pondicherry were puzzled when she spoke with them in French instead of the Tamizh they expected from a dharmavaram cotton/ kanjevaram silk and big bhottu-sporting amma. That’s for the small talk. The classes have also helped bring Bruni-Sarkozy tales closer home while the assignments helped name Alain Delon and understand Cézanne. Moreover, it’s been a humbling experience to see that confusion at conjugations and tenses can often be enough that two people can share in common to be friends, and that all your other theories of compatibility and common interests and common emotional patterns may not amount to very much.

I’m only at an elementary level, and cannot speak of how knowing French has opened a whole new world to me. But to the extent that the rigmarole of life currently allows, it does wipe some spots on the window. Roland Garros has never been the same for me since first having been there, and this year would make it special on another count: I’d hope to understand more than just the scores being announced! There of course, always is the possibility of a tête-à-tête over hushed conversations, that won’t even make the dinner-table candle flicker, instead festoon the ambience with flirtatious jibes and heartfelt but measured laughter, with words like “magnifique”, “amour” and “coup de foudre” being thrown around like confetti at the Elysees1 on July the 14th… unless of course the person in question may still prefer the Queen’s language!