When Strangers Call

NO doubt I would have dealt with the daily challenges a lot better if our apartment was a sanctuary I could retreat to. For me, home is a place to escape from the outside world, a peaceful haven where I can relax and rejuvenate myself. But not in Mumbai. I didn't live in a fashionable, foreigner-filled suburb such as Bandra; I lived in conservative, middle-class Kandivali West. Very rarely was a foreigner seen there. As a result, I was a spectacle.

I'd accepted that unwanted attention would be a part of life in India when I went out, but I'd always been able to close the door on it. When I was safely ensconced inside, I could dress how I wanted and be myself, away from prying eyes. Yet, at the apartment complex, a constant and steady stream of people knocked on our door. Children wanted to collect cricket balls and shuttlecocks that regularly landed on our balcony. Tradesmen wanted to collect tools that they'd accidentally dropped from higher levels. The newspaper, cable TV and Internet providers wanted to collect payment. The landlord wanted to collect his mail.

As is the case with many people in India, the landlord was disconcertingly fond of unannounced visits and not turning up when he was supposed to. The informal and open nature of Indian culture, along with the ancient Sanskrit phase Atithi Devo Bhava (A Guest is like God) that's ingrained in Indian minds, means that visitors have been dropping in on each other unannounced for centuries. In big families with blurred boundaries, unannounced visits keep alive the sense of kinship. They also provide interest for bored housewives with nothing to do all day apart from cook and watch saas-bahu (mother-in-law and daughter-in-law) serials on the TV.

One hot day, I was in the middle of washing the floors while the water supply was on. There was a knock on the door. Dressed in shorts and a singlet, sweating profusely and showing an indecent amount of leg, I opened the door to the landlord. I had no option but to invite him in.

‘Please sit, I'll be back in a minute,’ I told him while I dashed into the bedroom to put on something more appropriate. Not being a tea drinker, I didn't have any tea or biscuits to give him. The only thing I could offer him was water.

The landlord's mother also dropped in unannounced once in a while. The first time she did so, she headed straight for the kitchen like every other Indian woman. There was some bread sitting on the bench.

‘What do you eat for breakfast and lunch? Do you eat this bread for both meals? It's not healthy. You should have roti (Indian bread) only,’ she informed me.

‘But it's so much trouble to make it,’ I said. Aryan's second eldest sister, Amita, had given me a demonstration. I'd tried it a few times but found the process messy and painstaking, as dough got under my nails and stuck to my rings.

‘No, no, no, it's quick once you know how to do it properly. I will show you.’

She went over to my shelves and started searching for the ingredients.

‘These shelves are very badly organised. Look here, I will sort out all your containers for you.’ She started pulling them down, taking out their contents and changing them around. I could hardly believe it. Here was a stranger completely rearranging the containers on my shelves – never mind if I approved!

Although I preferred that they let me know when they were coming, I didn't mind the occasional presence of the landlord or his mother too much. He was a young engineer with an interest in spirituality and compelling things to say, despite his staggering self-interested behaviour. She was a warm and intelligent schoolteacher who often brought me clothes.

The landlord's wife, however, possessed none of these graces. The first time I met her was during an unannounced visit. I was still in bed, so Aryan answered the door and let her in.

‘Where is your wife? I want to see her,’ she demanded.

‘She's not up yet.’

Undeterred, the wife opened our bedroom door and barged in. I was stunned. I was half-asleep and half-dressed in bed, with a woman who I'd never seen before standing in front of me.

The wife's second unannounced visit was as bad as the first. It happened on the day my grandmother's funeral was taking place back home in Australia.

‘You get the door,’ I told Aryan as I ran for the bedroom.

I'd been crying and really didn't want to see anyone. Again, she came looking for me. When she opened the door to the bedroom and entered, I could barely even manage to smile at her. Feeling terrible, I later explained to the landlord what had happened.

‘She must have been coming to offer her condolences,’ he joked. Then he added, ‘She's a little less cultured in her mentality.’

The landlord's excuse was a legitimate one. Unfortunately, many of the people living in our apartment building had the same mentality as his wife. There were six apartments on our floor, including ours. One was vacant, and one was a childcare centre. I very rarely saw the people who occupied the apartment next to ours, so was never sure who lived there. However, the remaining two apartments housed a rotund man who roared like a bull when he fought with his wife, and an elderly Maharastran lady and her husband.

The elderly lady who lived in the flat at the end of the hallway liked to go on frequent walks around the complex. It didn't take her long to come and investigate who we were. If she saw us returning home, she'd follow us back to our apartment and then come inside. Although she only spoke a few words of English, it didn't deter her from talking to me.

She took to knocking on our door at all hours of the day and night. It wouldn't have been so bad if her visits had a beneficial purpose. Rather, she sat and looked over my shoulder while I tried to write, or walked around the apartment and snooped. Nowhere was off limits, even our bedroom where my desk was located.

During one visit, she pulled me aside.

‘Eat lots of pomegranates to have a baby. Shhhh, don't tell your husband,’ she whispered conspiratorially.

I didn't dare mention to her that we weren't even married yet.

She was very persistent. Another day, I was deep into my work, trying to finish an article so that I could go out and do the grocery shopping. There was a knock at the door. Aryan let her in, and she promptly came over to my desk.

‘You like the Big B, Amitabh Bachchan?’ she started chatting to me about the Bollywood actor. I nearly screamed in annoyance.

Aryan was about to go out and leave her with me.

‘No way! You're not going anywhere,’ I shouted at him in rapid English.

She didn't understand what I said but it was obvious that I was tense. She turned to Aryan and asked him what was bothering me.

‘Aunty, I have to go out and do the shopping, so I have to get ready,’ I insisted to her. She made no move at all to leave, and just sat there talking to Aryan.

Aryan didn't feel like he could tell her to go away because she was an elderly woman. It was a matter of respect. I had no idea how to handle the situation because it was something I'd never experienced before.

The intrusions gradually started bothering Aryan as well. Early one morning the neighbour's knocking got him out of bed. She was standing at the door with a group of workmen in tow. They needed access to our balcony. Hours later they returned and came marching through our bedroom. I'd just gotten up and was still in my nightwear. I had no chance to make myself look respectable at all. Apparently, they'd dropped a tool and it was lodged somewhere below our window. They came back a third time, again unannounced, carrying a huge magnet to retrieve it.

‘I can't stand this any longer. How am I supposed to live like this?’ I fumed to Aryan.

I couldn't relax. I felt I had to be appropriately dressed at all times, ready to receive whoever came knocking. There was no privacy and no solitude. In a country where modesty was important, and where I was constantly the centre of attention, I felt extremely awkward if someone dropped by and I wasn't dressed to Indian standards. Yet, the weather was so hot, I didn't want to cover my legs and shoulders at home like I had to when I was out. I also needed to be left alone to do my work. The problem was that people couldn't fathom that I had a proper job and worked from home.

‘It's your home, you should dress how you want. Don't worry about the people who come to the door,’ Aryan said.

He was very casual about what he wore in the apartment. I didn't have the same freedom, particularly as it was often men who knocked on the door unannounced. I didn't want to further add to the common perception that foreigners were indecent. As it turned out, all these intrusions were small annoyances compared to what was in store. I really got to experience what an uncultured mentality was like when new neighbours moved into the vacant flat next door.

They first made their presence known by knocking on our door to borrow matches for the puja (prayer) they were performing to bless their apartment. A couple of days later, they returned. I heard a commotion coming from their side of the building. When I opened the door to see what was going on, I realised it was the new neighbours having a heated altercation with a real estate broker. There were at least six of them, and they were all yelling loudly at the broker. The only words I could understand were ‘paisa’ (money) and ‘chabi’ (key).

They moved in a few days later, and I became acquainted with them very quickly because they knocked on my door almost every ten minutes.

‘Andar se yeh darvaza bandh karo, aur yeh aur yeh nikal do (Close this door from inside, and remove this and this),’ they ordered in Hindi while pointing to the doormat and rubbish bin. Their furniture was being delivered and space needed to be cleared.

Then they wanted to borrow a small table so that their electrician could stand on it to install their ceiling fans. Then they wanted to connect a cable to our power supply and use our power until theirs was turned on a day or two later.

My Hindi wasn't that good. Had I understood properly? They wanted to use our power supply? Disbelieving, I phoned Aryan, who was at work. It was exactly what they wanted. And Aryan, being such a kind-hearted guy, agreed. Never mind the fact that it's illegal.

Not long after, there was another knock on the door. The new neighbours wanted to borrow a portable fan to cool themselves until their ceiling fans were installed. I really didn't understand what they were asking for this time, so they came inside our apartment to look for what they wanted. All our rooms and possessions were thoroughly examined and exclaimed upon, even after it was apparent that we didn't have a portable fan.

‘Yeh kitne ka hai? (This costs how much?)’ they frequently and brazenly asked.

My privacy totally invaded, I started feeling anxious. It was exacerbated by the fact that ‘forbidden’ items were sitting visibly on our kitchen bench – a collection of wine bottles was lined up on display. This was a Gujarati building, and the neighbours were Gujaratis. Besides meat, alcohol was taboo in most Gujarati homes because of the puritan influence of Mahatma Gandhi, who'd lived in the state of Gujarat. In fact, Gujarat was a dry state. The sale of alcohol was banned there. The last thing I wanted was to be on the receiving end of any disapproval or complaints for sullying the apartment building.

‘I'm going to look inside your apartment now,’ I announced to the neighbours, to get them out of our apartment. They seemed delighted at the prospect.

I was astounded when I reached their kitchen. It was engulfed in a sea of silver. Every surface was occupied by a silver tin. And there were more silver tins, of various shapes and sizes, still waiting to be unpacked out of very large boxes. What could they possibly keep in so many tins? My dismay must have been apparent, because everyone started laughing.

I discovered that there would be four people living in the apartment. Two parents, their son and his new wife. The son and his wife slept in the only bedroom, while the parents slept in the living room. Wanting to be friendly, I bought some ladoos (sweets) to welcome them while I was doing the grocery shopping. Very innocently, based on my experience with neighbours back home, I thought that this would draw to a close my interactions with them. New neighbours were usually greeted, offered assistance and rarely seen again.

Little did I know that my goodwill gesture was like inviting my new neighbours into my life at any time of day or night. It earned me an immediate request to join them in their apartment, where the usual questions were asked.

‘What are you doing in India?’

‘Can you speak Gujarati?’

‘Can you cook?’

‘What can you cook?’

‘Have you cooked dinner yet?’

‘Do you have children?’

Exhausted from the inquisition, I was glad to retreat to my apartment.

Early the next morning, the knocking recommenced. The new neighbours wanted to warm some milk for their chai. Apparently, as well as electricity, they didn't have gas either. Or hot water.

It was very bad timing. I was in the process of reheating some leftover chicken for Aryan's breakfast. Quickly, but not quickly enough, I tried to put the chicken back into the fridge. The wine bottles were still on full display where they couldn't help but be noticed.

Later that day came a request for ice.

When family members came to visit the new neighbours, they wanted me to individually meet every one of them.

‘Aao, aao (Come, come),’ they insisted, almost forcibly dragging me out of my apartment. After being examined and questioned by five family members, I was told that more would be arriving the next day. Where could I possibly escape to?

But that wasn't all. As I was going back to my apartment, the mother cornered me and started talking to me animatedly in Hindi. I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I do believe she told me to clean the dirt on the floor in the hallway. I could understand her references to cleaning and how dirty the floor was, and the pointed way in which she looked at me.

‘Kachra-wala aaega (The cleaner will come),’ I tried to tell her.

I certainly wasn't going to clean a mess I didn't make. Besides, I'd become aware of The Rule: the only dirt that matters in India is the dirt that's actually inside the home.

My thoughts about what the mother might have said became more believable the next morning. By 10 a.m. we'd received three knocks on our door. The first came at 8 to tell us our newspaper was waiting on our doorstep. We were well aware of that; it was there every day. On the second knock, she told us to keep our rubbish bin inside because it looked dirty. No matter that everyone kept their bins outside. The third knock was from the daughter-in-law, who wanted me to go to their apartment.

‘Not possible, she has work,’ Aryan replied.

I'd made him answer all the knocks on the door, including one while he was shaving. I hoped the new neighbours would see that they were inconveniencing us. I thought that if I refused to show my face, they'd get the message that I was unavailable and didn't want to mingle with them.

‘You need to start making up excuses. Tell them you have guests coming or that you have to go out or have other plans. Anything to stop them from bothering you,’ Aryan advised.

He was telling me to adopt what I had termed the Indian lying technique. This was the same technique he'd used to deal with prying passengers on our long-distance train trips. At its worst, people in India agreed to things that they had no intention of doing, and gave misleading answers. I struggled to accept that lying was a survival tactic in India, and that it wasn't considered immoral or unethical. In contrast, many Indians believed that having a boyfriend was much more immoral than not telling the truth.

When the new neighbours' kitchen became functional, they were kind enough to deliver some freshly cooked vegetarian Gujarati food to us to eat. I was wary about showing too much gratitude, though.

‘You need to be careful,’ Aryan's sister Maliha had warned us when we told her about what was going on. ‘If you're too friendly, they'll ask you to accommodate their guests if there's not enough room in their apartment.’

I was incredulous. Surely that couldn't be true? They would ask us to accommodate strangers in our small one-bedroom apartment?

Aryan confessed to the elderly Maharastran woman down the hall how much the new neighbours were troubling us. She didn't like them either.

‘Rumour has it that they used to live in a chawl,’ he reported back to me. ‘That's why they don't know how to behave properly.’

The knocking on our door declined markedly. The reason why wasn't pleasing though. The neighbours had started leaving their apartment door wide open. As they sat in their living room, they had a direct view of everything that went on outside their apartment, including when I went in and out of mine.

‘Kyaa karti hain? (What are you doing?)’ they asked me as I placed heavy bags of groceries on the floor while trying to quickly unlock my door.

On one occasion, they were adamant that I go into their apartment. They wanted to show me how they'd decorated it. As I looked around, it was obvious that they'd been busy acquiring garish and kitsch items. They were terribly proud of them too. The centrepiece was a sparkly light fitting on the ceiling that changed colours. It looked like they were planning on having a disco in their apartment.

I began to form my own theory about them.

‘You know what I think?’ I said to Aryan. ‘They've come from a chawl, and they're spending all the dowry money that they got from their son's wedding.’

He laughed. ‘You could be right.’

What other reason could there be for them to move into a rented apartment, and spend large sums of money on adorning it in such an ostentatious way?

Finally, the day came when the unwanted attention pushed me over the edge. The son knocked on our door, for no apparent reason apart from the fact that he and his family were going into their apartment. The mother came over and quizzically looked me up and down. I stood there unwashed, dressed in cargo pants and a T-shirt.

‘Kyaa karti hain? (What are you doing?)’ she asked, as usual.

‘What are YOU doing? Why are you asking me that?’ I wanted to shout at her. Instead, I stood there stunned, like an animal caught in the headlights. What could I possibly say? I'm at home, dressed comfortably, minding my own business. Then I'm disturbed for no reason, looked at strangely and asked what I'm doing. Maybe she thought I was dressed in men's clothes or something.

I made up my mind not to answer the door anymore. The resolution wasn't so easy to put into practice. Only hours later, I was washing clothes in the bathroom, semi-undressed and drenched. I had put on psychedelic trance music at high volume. Over the music came a banging on the door at an equally loud volume. I tried ignoring it but it wouldn't stop. Exasperated, I put a towel around myself and yanked open the door. It was the daughter-in-law's sister. She just wanted to say hi. It was all too much for me.

‘Please, can't you see that I'm busy?’ I exploded and slammed the door shut. Surely no Indian would have to put up with being such a constant source of attention?

After I calmed down, I deeply regretted my rude behaviour. I cursed myself for failing to deal with the circumstances better. The vexing contact with the new neighbours had become the focal point of my life, and it was making me feel miserable and even more out of place.

It was only when I shared my burden with an American friend, Justin, that I got some light-hearted relief. He was living and working in Mumbai. Back in America, he'd taught yoga to Linda whom I'd met in Kolkata.

‘They're just not cool,’ he summed it up. ‘But they're only doing what they're used to as part of their culture.’

The more I thought about it, the more I realised he was right. If I lived next door to a Bollywood celebrity and hounded her day and night, dragging her into my apartment to meet my relatives and constantly knocking on her door to see what she was doing, no doubt she'd soon become irritated. Such behaviour would definitely not be cool. My neighbours were acting the same way towards me. Forget fame, I'd much rather have fortune!

Thankfully, just as night follows day, Aryan had many friends in Mumbai and they were cool. Most of them were in the music industry and, accustomed to foreigners, they treated me the same as they did anyone else. Being out with them in Mumbai's vast nightlife helped me stay sane. As too did the neighbours gradually losing interest in me while I increasingly ignored them.