I have often rued the fact that I stay in a flat on the third floor. Bound on all sides by walls, no front/backyard for the dog to pee- hence no dog either, no verandah to laze about on, no garden to potter around in -never mind that my fingers are brown, not green...

But one thing that abounds is neighbours. I have plenty of them. Closer than  than I would like sometimes. Some good, some bad, some downright caring. Like the lady I'm going to tell you about.

She stays in the flat adjacent, actually, not in my flat. But our respective kitchens have their work-areas facing each other. So we get to exchange neighbourly small talk while loading/unloading the washing machines. When our respective brats make a fuss to get our attention while we are busiest in the kitchen, we each do our bit of distracting.  When either of us gets back from our hometown, our work-areas are close enough for us to do some s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g exercises across the grills and reach across familiar home-made goodies, both of us coming from the Malabar region. But all of this was when I hadn't resumed work. Once that mad cycle of work started, I barely had time for my little son, so my neighbourly relations came under pressure.

But the bond that had been formed was strong, especially since we both were young mothers. And we did catch up with each other's lives, once in a blue moon.
She had been expecting her second baby.  And she gave birth to a bonny baby boy last Friday. And I got to know about it only yesterday!
Yesterday she espied me loading the washing machine and called out from her kitchen with a bright smile-
"Hey! I delivered my baby". 
And the next second, I had forgotten all about having to go to office, and we were both laughing through the grills, at each other, in delight. There's something about a newborn baby that brings a smile to your face and, makes it stay...

I was really pleased for her, for I knew that she had been a wee bit worried about the birth, inspite of it being her second, as she had had some complications.  Mother was healthy, baby was healthy, and both were thriving, save for a slight disappointment that this one too was a boy. We spoke a little about the hospital and birth and other stuff, before her Mom came to shoo her back to bed, where she was supposed to be, in the first place.

And I went back to get ready for work, with a smile still on my face, thinking of the time when she had proved what a caring neighbour she was....

We had been having a puja in our home- a Ganapathy homam and a Bhagavathy Seva. For those who do not know, this is a puja done basically to get rid of all obstacles and to usher in prosperity. For the homam, a lot of smoke ensues, when you pour the offerings on the fire. Well, that particular time, the fumes were particularly dense, and started issuing out of all possible vents.
The priest was chanting in the loud, typically nasal tones, and also had his bell ringing, so that we didn't hear it initially. Then we couldn't miss it- it was my name- being screamed madly, frantically by my dear neighbour, with utter panic in her voice. She seemed to be going beserk from the sound of her. I rushed out, thinking something must've happened to her son, and saw that her face was pale with fright, fear, worry...

"What happened? What's wrong?" I yelled, in a panic too.

"Your home's on fire, " she said, gesturing wildly towards my kitchen.

"What??!!" And I looked back.

Because the kitchen doors are the ones to get the maximum airflow, we'd kept the kitchen doors open, and the smoke was pouring out of it in great volumes. And kept on pouring densely, as the fire consumed more and more of the ghee and other offerings.

And this poor lady thought that me and my son were being roasted alive. And she was yelling for all she was worth, for us to get out. She was a muslim, and had no clue as to the weird things we hindus get up to sometimes. Filling our houses with smoke indeed!

I explained matters, and she gave me a look that spoke volumes. Indeed, I cannot express in words, all that her look conveyed to me that day.

But it certainly conveyed that she was a caring concerned neighbour.