Conversational Life

Anyone who has grown up in India, around the north, or within a hundred miles of my birthplace knows that there's no such thing as a short conversation within the female kind here. My mother, aunts and cousin sisters where the leaders & mascots.

They will stop to say hi, and two hours later they're still going at it. They talk till their tongues are tuckered out and crows are flying back home. Then they say goodbye and talk another twenty minutes or so--just for good measure.

And they don't just talk to the people they know. They bloody talk to all the other females within their vision: new female vegetable vendor comes in our lane and give her time till she reaches our gate and Lo!!! You know her name, husbands name, how many kids, kids name, where is she from, where is her husband from, where do they stay now, how many in-laws she got, how they treat her everything absolutely every drop of information that sabziwaali has collected in her entire life till now is out.
Motto is to get to know your neighbors--intimately. My mom knows where they're going, when they leave in the morning, and what time they come home. And if a neighbor leaves in the middle of the night, well, you'd better believe she will find out why--as soon as it gets light enough outside to trot across the street and ask.

Funny things happen at random our neighbors got window blinds and a day later my cousin marched over and told her that she got a problem with them. "Ever since you got those new blinds, I can't see a thing that's going in your house”. I am sure we will be registering same complaints from our neighbors if we do shade our windows.

Now it’s not that my town folks are nosy and pee on your rights to privacy… we are just curious. We still believe that neighbors ought to share one another's lives. We laugh together, cry together, and yes, sometimes we even fight together. But the point is that we care. So many people in the cities have isolated lives and absolutely no interaction with their neighbors. How sad is that? My sweet grand mother would roll over in her grave at the thought. She never needed a TV (it was not introduced to our town then is a different issue)…. The chair set on the front verandah was enough to provide her all her lifetime entertainment. Part of this entertainment is surely killed with TV and Ekta Kapoor’s serials but life is more or less still the same.

One great truth all these people taught me is that the destination isn't nearly as important as the journey.

Anyways if you ever meet womankind of my place take my advice… If you don't have time to talk, better just keep on walking...