{"id":104335,"date":"2020-07-08T15:02:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T22:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=104335"},"modified":"2020-07-08T15:02:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T22:02:00","slug":"the-unlocking-secret-lives-of-my-neighbours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/07\/08\/the-unlocking-secret-lives-of-my-neighbours\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unlocking: Secret lives of my neighbours"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Indu Balachandran\/www.medium.com<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Lockdown in Chennai? Well, not quite in my building. In the past three months of lockdown, a lot of un-locking has happened \u2014 unknown talents, unspoken dreams, unexpected actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t tell anyone, but I am going to reveal a few things about my neighbours I believed I knew for years \u2014 without really knowing them at all \u2014 till a virus made them break out.<\/ins><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aunty, your bra is showing\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really never thought I\u2019d see Mrs Ambujam of 5B walking around my neighbourhood in her bra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whoever thought this conservative Mami from the flat downstairs would be out hobbling about at 7.30am, in her bright flowery home-made face-bra, (the size looked to be a single 34A cup), standing before me on the fourth circle in the queue? She even pulled the elastic downwards seductively at Ponnusamy, our vegetable man, but only for a brief moment, to admonish him for not putting back his own mask hanging rakishly around one ear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ambujam Mami stuffed her yellow LG Asafoetida cloth bag with fresh keerai, and quickly walked past me. Who had time for idle chit-chat when there was so much housework to be done before sitting down to stitch more and more of her home-made face-masks \u2014 all from her granddaughter\u2019s unworn dupattas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that the face-bra had become compulsory over-wear, as obligatory to wear in society as underwear, I was so pleased to see that even Ambujam Mami was looking at the fashion industry, excited by the new business opportunities ahead. At first Ambujam Mami had been shocked when that bold Mrs Acharya of her Mylapore Ladies\u2019 Club had suggested this word: \u2018Face-bra\u2019 for her home-made masks. Her son had set up something very complicated called Zoom on his laptop for her, but she was thrilled to see familiar faces from her neighbourhood pop up in small squares (even though some were unrecognisable as all she could see were big nostrils and diamond nose-rings) but over time, they learnt to \u2018adjust\u2019 and present better angles of themselves when they met twice a week. Face-bra?! Many had giggled in embarrassment over that word, hoping their family wasn\u2019t listening in. But Mrs Acharya\u2019s helpful demos soon had them all raiding their cupboards for new soft material to cut up, pin and stitch and even embellish \u2014 what about one with a touch of zari for that postponed wedding of her grand niece, coming up in February \u201921?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course her cheeky teenager granddaughter had spread the word that her Paati was now making face-bras. And even getting made-to-order requests from her friends. \u2018Paati, my friend\u2019s father now wants one, too! But you must make it a plain, manly bra. And how about calling it a \u2018Face-Bro\u2019 just for guys, Paati!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Thatha is behaving like a teenager\u2026\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I met Cheenu Mama of 3C just as we both stepped into the lift. Without appearing rude, we both took extreme corners of the small lift, keeping at least a 3-foot distance till our respective floors came up. But in that 15-second masked encounter I did see what Cheenu Mama had furtively picked up in his red plastic shopping bag that day from Surya Greens: pizza bases!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grinned unseen behind my mask. So Cheenu Mama was fed up of the daily Tam-brahm sambar-rasam-poriyal routine. I simply had to find out What Happened Next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I brought up the subject with Meenu Paati, Cheenu Mama\u2019s wife, when I saw her one day at our common corridor. \u2018Ayyo, any need for all this? Is he a teenager or what? But he quietly went and bought so many, many things just to make two small pizzas! A whole bottle of some red paste, a box of cheese cubes, expensive coloured koda-molagas, even some horrible mushrooms! Any need? And not to mention one herbs bottle from Amma Nana Stores! So what next, are you going to buy an oven just for this one day, from Viveks? I asked. No need! he says. I saw a YouTube video called Mangala\u2019s Kitchen\u201d where we can make pizza on our gas stove itself, with our tawa. Oho what a fine mess he created \u2014 trying to make it all by himself. I spent one hour just cleaning up the kitchen\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, hey, did I detect a mischievous delight and pride through this rant about her husband\u2019s bold foray into the kitchen? \u2018Meenu Paati! So that\u2019s the great smell I was getting last week from your kitchen! Tell Cheenu Mama, next time, he has to make an extra pizza, just for me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lipstick under my hijab\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was on an evening terrace walk that I bumped into Jamila Aunty. Well, \u2018bump into\u2019 is only an expression; who does that anymore, even accidentally?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought I saw an extra spring in her 70+ legs during her walk these days (of course, I guessed the reason, but pretended I didn\u2019t know a thing). \u2018Hello Jamila Aunty! How\u2019s life\u2026\u2019 I said, as I saw her emerge from the far end of our mottai-maadi. We stopped a respectful corona-dictated gap, but I felt there was no generation gap between us any more. If what her daughter-in-law Farah said was true!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, if I could only be a lizard on the wall of Flat 2B, I would be able to see for myself Jamila Aunty\u2019s guilty secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every Wednesday, at 7 pm, Farah, my good friend from 2B, would be ready, closing herself up in the drawing room for an hour, wearing her dancing shoes and red lipstick, for her Zoom online Salsa classes to begin. But it was only after a month of Wednesdays that Koki Ma\u2019m, Farah\u2019s Salsa teacher, began to spot a face in the far background intently peeping in, inside Farah\u2019s square in the Zoom grid. \u2018Watch out, Farah, your ma-in-law is spying on you!\u2019 Koki messaged Farah after class that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farah decided in her next class to see if it was true. Yes! There she was peering from the small grill window in the kitchen, into the drawing room. Farah danced on regardless with her class of eight happy young women \u2014 but did notice a huge big smile on her mother-in-law\u2019s face, especially during a rather sexy Latino hip-swing that ended that day\u2019s session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Koki\u2019s cheeky message after class that started it all. \u2018Pull her in, Farah! What\u2019s the bet she wants to dance too\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s how Jamila Aunty\u2019s life changed. \u2018Ammi, come, I\u2019ll teach you some basics of Salsa\u2026don\u2019t worry, Ammi, my teacher says there\u2019s no age to start learning; there\u2019s even a 67-year-old lady in her Jive class who doesn\u2019t miss a single day\u2019s session!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farah laughed and told me all about this saas-bahu pact that had got Jamila Aunty swinging her hips again \u2014 just as she had years and years ago at Farah\u2019s mehendi ceremony. \u2018We had all forgotten how surprisingly well she danced. So now it\u2019s our own little secret. Even my husband and kids don\u2019t know a thing! We play Despacito on her cell phone in her bedroom, and I teach her beginner\u2019s \u2018shines\u2019 or basic steps of Salsa, but I\u2019m worried if she\u2019s going to get better than me soon\u2026 Who knows, she could even join my class, Koki Ma\u2019m insists!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you won\u2019t believe what Ammi said today, after a fit of giggles\u2026 \u2018But what about Koki Ma\u2019m\u2019s rules of your Wednesday class, Farah beti. Okay, I do have some heels I can wear again, but I need to borrow something from you. And only then I\u2019ll be ready to dance \u2014 with lipstick under my hijab!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Originally published in Lockdown Journal Chennai, July 2020)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Indu wrote advertising slogans for a living, till the travel-writing bug bit her.(Free travel, free stays, free food!). Her 30-year advertising career at JWT led to her first best-seller, Don\u2019t Go Away, We\u2019ll Be Right Back: The Oops & Downs of Advertising. As a travel\/humour columnist, Indu\u2019s writings appear in Lonely Planet, Sunday Hindu, Firstpost, Readers Digest; and five anthologies of stories. Her romantic novel Runaway Writers has been republished in the UK as The Writers Retreat: <\/em>indubee8@yahoo.co.in)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Indu Balachandran\/www.medium.com Lockdown in Chennai? Well, not quite in my building. In the past three months of lockdown, a lot of un-locking has happened \u2014 unknown talents, unspoken dreams, unexpected actions. Don\u2019t tell anyone, but I am going to reveal a few things about my neighbours I believed I knew for years \u2014 without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}