Neighbours With Benefits

I was woken up one Sunday morning by the noise of hustle-bustle just outside my window. Cursing the noise for disturbing my weekend’s sleep, I went up to the window to look for the source of the noise. My new neighbors had just moved into the house right behind ours, a house that was empty for far too long. I was rather happy to see those people as I was looking for some new friends in my colony. I made a mental note to go and introduce myself.

As soon as I was done with my breakfast, I dressed up and headed their way.

No sooner had I crossed my backyard, I saw a lady from the new family walking towards me. She was wearing a red-green salwar kameez with a perfectly round bindi on her forehead, looked groomed and well dressed. I could feel a smile curving on my lips. Suddenly, she stood against her compound wall and emptied their garbage bin, right across the wall and into an empty plot next to our house. I was shocked.

As soon as I gathered my bearing, I went up to her and said “Excuse me, would you care to dispose your waste in a dustbin?” It was the lady’s turn to be stunned, by my words. She stared at me for a little too long. When she finally opened her mouth, she was spitting fire, “That plot is not yours, and neither is it your business to poke your nose in our affairs.” She turned and went back into the house.

 I swore that moment to never speak to her again. As I was turning towards our house, I saw her daughter peeping out of the house. She looked like a college student.

Later, I heard that she was doing her masters.

There was one room in their house which was always visible from my room. Strangely, this room was lit from nine in the night until well past midnight and then again from five in to morning until seven.

It was the time of my pre - board exams in december and I used to be in my room most of the time, studying. Every time I took a break, I would look up to that room and wonder who stays there. One day my mother caught me staring. Like a typical Indian mother, she gave me a long lecture on what shouldn’t a girl do.

When she finally gave me a chance to speak, I told her that it was my curiosity about the time of lighting that room that kept me hooked. She told me it was a study room and the neighbour’s daughter would study there.

This light slowly became an inspiration for me, and the girl studying for such long hours a motivation. I started emulating those timings.

I cleared my pre - boards with flying colors.

As the year end approached, my mother and I were planning a good dinner for the night of 31^st. She looked at me and smiled, as if about to reveal a secret to me.

She then told me that she had no clue of what that room with the lights was. She had just made it up to inspire me.

I sat there wonderstruck. Amazed at how our minds tend to think and how we can find inspiration if we look for it.
 

All thanks to my neighbor that I never spoke to, for giving me such a valuable lesson and a story worth sharing.

Just as we were preparing for our dinner on the New Year’s Eve, I heard a truck start its engines right outside our house. Our neighbours were leaving, I was smiling, though the mystery of the midnight light in that room still remains unsolved for me.