Love Thy Neighbour!

The day I moved into the second floor apartment of a recently added tower in a swanky Condominium, the gentleman from the first floor pressed my spanking new doorbell, and stood there waiting. He explained his presence there, tentatively. “It seems you have just arrived…may I, may I be of any help?”
“But why would you want to help?” I asked.
“Because we’re neighbours. Simple.” He stood there adding that his sixth sense said there was going to be some kind of a karmic connection between us.
“Between neighbours? Forget it. If you must be of some help, please send your maid to me instead please.”
“You don’t understand. I felt it that first instance my eyes fell on you this morning when your stuff was getting unloaded. Cant you already see the connect? Our balconies overlook the same car park, they lie stacked upon one another, water from the building overhead tank will come first to your house and then will flow down to mine, we share the common floor-cum-ceiling area, brick by brick, with this continuous flow of concrete, iron and cement. In the beginning, there is always only that smooth concrete binding force…How can you not see it?”

Of course, I couldn’t. Maybe I was karmically challenged. I decided to give it a try all the same. I could do with a pair of extra hands anyway. Within minutes he was struggling with the heavy boxes, pushing, pulling, shoving, lifting, breaking his back, all with a smile.

Even while I stood there sizing up the queerness quotient of that man, I suddenly felt the wires meet! Live wires, these! Made me feel those first, very first stirrings in my heart. I could see the sweat-beads forming on his puckered forehead on that hot and humid Delhi midday, and the gentle trickle flowing down the sideburns, down to the Adam’s apple…how I felt this irresistible urge to rush to him and collect his perspiration on my palms to acknowledge his gracious and selfless help; to look into his eyes as he struggled with those mammoth cartons all by himself, and silently say, ‘I can now see what you saw then.’

Were these the first delicate strains of tenderness hovering around? Oh yes, I felt them now. I felt them strong, felt them sure.

The day ended far too soon. He left in the evening with the sweet promise of an early return the next day. So, on day two, we swept and dusted and mopped and lined the cupboards with newspapers and arranged things together. We set up my kitchen together, dish by dish, empty vessel by vessel. We skipped down to his house for a shortbread-and-crisps break, and like a magician, he rustled up the most deliciously subtle pancakes, smeared in the headiest of maple syrups I’d had in ages. At my honest confession that I can’t cook to save my life he said he’d happily don the chef’s cap for me at all meals. With measured steps, taking time over each tier of the staircase, we walked up together back to my house. And at dusk, we lit up my house together. The unmistakable and growing symbolism of it all, how could the two stranger-hearts not start ticking as one?!

Just then the doorbell rang.

In walked The Hubby, and stood there stupidly, waiting to be introduced. Name? Did he have one? Did it matter?! The Hubby, reading my mind, mood, skipping beats, dilated pupils, and my embarrassment quickly initiated the formalities of both the introduction and a quick dismissal of the other man from my presence.

I didn’t have to say anything, the Hubby knew it all. With a wink and smiles breaking at the corner of his lips, he murmured, “I can see you’ve had an eventful house-warming, wifey! Good good, enjoy! Don’t forget to share the details with me, though! Do you, by any chance, want me to come home a little later tomorrow evening?!”

“Ha!” I hugged him tight, and promised not to go overboard.

Easier said!

By day three, the gentleman and I were cooking together in my kitchen, I more as an apprentice. By day four, we were eating together out of the same plate to save us the trouble of washing more dishes. By day five, in a bid to save our building water, we were using only one washing machine between the two households to do ‘our’ clothes. On day six, I asked him if he was on an extended leave from work. He said he’s a painter, so all the world’s his canvas, all the people his subject and all the physical space his work-studio. Profound, I thought; my admiration grew manifolds.

The gentleman and I spent our days together. In bliss. Utmost bliss. We talked of the sun and the moon, of the intergalactic phenomena and micro bursts, of blueberry crush and Spanish risotto, of volcanoes and whirlpools, of my school rivals and his culture vulture critics, of the men in my life and the women in his.

Just that, he somehow seemed to have forgotten to mention the one woman who mattered most.

The Wife!

Who’d have even foreseen a Mrs. Neighbour, who apparently had gone visiting her folks these last three weeks? Upon her return, I’m not sure how she figured that her husband’s heart was not exactly at the same place where she’d left it. Suddenly overnight, I became the dreaded and universally loathed ‘other woman’ in the neighbourhood. I was distraught, my heart shattered to bits, and with the gentleman not there to pick up the shards (as he was too busy fighting the wild flames of fury on the floor below), I became inconsolable. An amused hubby- my confidante, sounding board, soulmate, friend, philosopher, guide all rolled into one - offered to broker peace between me and that wife, but I flatly refused.

I would stick my ears close to the ground and feel the vessels being thrown up at the ceiling in the flat below; I would remain precariously bent from my balcony for hours, straining to hear the gentleman’s agitated cries of despair for being thus separated from me. I tried to sniff things out, but my olfactory senses used to remain perpetually blocked with all the hollering! Total devastation on all sides!

The other apartment residents tried to help in their own ways. They came and asked me if the gentleman had been sighted in recent days, or if he was unwell. Whether I knew if the wife was back. They were concerned that all kinds of sounds would emanate from the first floor house at odd hours, had the couple below set up their own theatre group? Men from other flats above would pop in on their way to work every morning to offer their most generous help with my house work. The drivers in the car park below would stand there with their eyes glued to my balcony, and his, for some drama to unfold. I politely asked them and their masters and mistresses to go to hell.

And then I saw HER! Two days after she had resurfaced into his life, she stormed into mine. Growled and looked and sniffed around the place for traces of her husband’s droppings, remnants of his existence intertwined with mine. Finding none (I had it all safe and locked up in my heart, those sweet gentle moments) she threw a piece of paper at me and shrieked, “Take this, you b**ch. I am going, but I will make sure you remain behind bars all your life,” and made a dash for the balcony.

Not having seen a suicide note ever before in my life, I was tempted to focus on it. But that would most certainly have sounded my death knell, as madam would have done her deed by then. Though there were enough well-wishers waiting to ‘catch’ her in her fall to martyrdom, I decided she needed immediate psychiatric aid, and ran to her.

“Mad woman, this is the second floor, for Pete’s sake. You attempt such an asinine thing, you’ll end up with just a broken rib and land up in jail, or worse, you’ll land in your own balcony, but still land up in jail. You know what that means? Your husband will be all alone in the house all over again.”

It helped. She turned to leave my flat threatening to do it from the 12th floor next time if I didn’t leave her husband for good. I told her I was not moving, she could do what she thought best. So, she turned back around, and this time dashed into my kitchen to storm out with a knife. Ah! That same knife with which until a few days back, he and I would chop ginger and carrots and onions and broccoli and at times, my finger, together. I would not let this imbalanced woman defile those memories. Ah, those bittersweet memories! So I snatched it back from her, sniffed it deep to make sure he was still on it, and said, ok, I’ll move.

So I shifted into to a new apartment in the corner-most, most secluded tower of the condo, where I was sure our karmic connection would no longer work. No common cement, iron bars, wall paint, water tank, drain-pipe, or plinth to hold us on together…

And then it happened again. The doorbell. And a hesitant nasal male voice from this dungaree-clad gentleman with flowing locks, “Hello…looks like you’ve just arrived…may I…”

It was beyond belief!

With unflinching curtness, I asked back, “Do you have a wife? A wife who doesn’t know you’re up here offering your free services to me?”

“What are you saying? I AM the wife sweeeeeetiepie! I know I know, it happens when people see me for the first time, but you’ll get used to me, my baiiibeee! Which you will, because I live next door to you!”

Phew! It takes all kinds to fill up my neighbour-collage!
I knew I was in safe company! Beaming, I let him in. There was such an awful lot of work waiting to be attended to…