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!