Neighbours

In my short span of life, I have seen more types of neighbours than you know. Unlike most people, I have shifted quite a lot. Unsurprisingly, my family and I have stayed in many places here and there in Kerala. From my experience, I can safely say that no two neighbours are alike. Let me tell you something about the different categories of next-door neighbours.

Firstly, there are the annoying neighbours. They are people who have nothing to do at home and instead talk about everything under the sun, ranging from the price of rice in the market to some personal complaint they want to lodge against the flat’s association. I am being very specific because this is what my mother has to tolerate from a very irritating neighbour practically every night when the supply of electricity goes off for a particular amount of time. Since my mother suffers from arthritis, I have to massage her legs and feet because my mother and my neighbour stand continuously for half an hour while they talk and it begins to hurt for her almost instantly.

Secondly, there are the polite, friendly neighbours. They are the ones who are well-mannered and sociable, but they also keep their distance as a sign that they don’t want to get involved in any deep friendship. They just ask, ‘How do you do?’ but don’t really care about anything else. They are good enough to spend a Friday night with but not close enough to spend all day Saturday with, if you get my gist.

Thirdly, there are the gossip-seeking neighbours. In every building and in every locality, there will always be gossip-mongers. They are usually the female homemakers who get so bored at home that they need personal secrets of others to keep themselves busy because they probably will spread it faster than how a cold spreads! It becomes really hard to talk to these people as they might spread every single detail that is told to them.

Fourthly, there are the silent neighbours. Like the three monkeys, they see no evil, they hear no evil and they speak no evil. By this, I mean that it seems as if they live under a rock, not knowing what is going on outside. They don’t know anything and they don’t want to know either.

Finally, there are the borrowing neighbours. They are the neighbours who pretend to be nice and responsive as long as they get what they want from others. Sometimes, things that are borrowed are not even returned!

As I told you before, this is just from experience. I am not an expert on the variety of neighbours but I certainly do know them quite well!

The Modern Muslim Wedding

In our pooja room, there would always be wedding invitations. Some might look good while some are just atrociously too much. On one particular day, I saw a wedding card which said “Sajina weds Shehin”. By the names, I understood that it was the marriage of our neighbour’s daughter’s wedding. I opened it and at the top, it was written “In the name of Allah, the most gracious and the most merciful”. After fully reading it, there was one word in it which I did not understand – nikkah. I asked my dad what it meant. He told me that it was the time of the actual marriage. I was fairly excited to be witnessing a Muslim wedding for the very first time in my life!
In a typical Brahmin wedding, there used to be 5-6 days of the function which has now reduced drastically to just 2 days. There would be lots of smoke and the vaadhyar chanting many prayers and Vedic mantras. But later, I learnt from my mum that a Muslim wedding was totally different.
As the D-day was approaching, my mum told me to wear the only salwar I had because she said we had to be “dressed” properly for these types of events. On the previous day of the marriage, we went to Style Plus, a fashion store, and bought a beautiful pair of diamond-shaped golden dangling earrings.
When the next day arrived, we were to depart at 11 o’clock with our neighbour. My mum wore a gorgeous bluish-greenish saree while I wore a violet churidar which had golden embroidery work near the neck line. After we were ready, the driver came and all of us, including our neighbour, Sandhya aunty, were on our way to Nalanchira, where the wedding hall was located. As our driver was not very familiar with the place, he took us to another hall called Sooryaprabha Convention Centre. Sandhya aunty told us that the place we were supposed to go to was a bit ahead of this particular hall. So, we embarked on a journey that took us to Mannanthala, Vattapara and Nedumangad. The driver began to worry because the address in the invitation was clearly in Nalanchira. Confirming his doubts, a pedestrian informed us that Kottackattu Convention Centre, where we were supposed to go, was opposite Navajeevan Bethany Vidyalaya, which we had already passed a while back. We drove back a long way, all the time listening to Sandhya aunty’s excuses.
Anyway, we reached the hall and were greeted by Latheefa aunty, the mother of the bride. We exchanged pleasantries and seated ourselves in the air-conditioned hall upstairs. The stage was wonderfully decorated and some songs were being played in the speakers. We sat there for a fair bit of time until the awaited moment finally came. The stage was filled in an instant by a large crowd of men, who I presumed were related to both the families. In the centre of the stage sat the groom, the father of the bride, the main Muslim priest and another priest of lesser importance. The father of the bride stood up and spoke through the microphone in Malayalam that this was the marriage of his daughter to Shehin, the groom. He told that all of us should pray for a happy marriage and that no one was supposed to leave until they all had lunch. Then, he sat down and the proceedings of the nikkah  began.
First, the main priest spoke about something in Arabic which he translated into Malayalam and told it again. He said that Islam is a very prosperous religion which gives the most freedom to all the women. Then, the assistant priest took the microphone in his hand. The father of the bride and groom held hands together and the assistant priest uttered some chants in Arabic and then in Malayalam which were to be repeated by the groom and the soon-to-be father-in-law of the groom. After they chanted everything, it was official that the marriage was over. Shehin and Sajina were married!
To keep up with the present time, the bride came out of the small back room and sat down near the groom on the stage. They exchanged garlands and the groom even tied the taali around her neck. This is commonly termed as taalikettu in Malayalam.
My mum and Sandhya aunty, including our other neighbours, and I went down to the canteen hall. We stood there, talking about the wedding and making other small talk, all the time waiting for the doors of the canteen hall to open. After some time of standing, they opened to doors and we were rushed in by the crowd. To our surprise, we saw that a beautiful saddhya was arranged to one side of the hall. We were expecting some fried rice and paneer mutter. We were totally surprised when we saw the banana leaves laden with all the usual curries and pappad. We had a hearty meal and a very memorable day.
Saying goodbye to Sandhya aunty, who was going home with her husband, my mum and I hopped in our car and drove away, all the time thinking about the Modern Muslim Wedding.