One Small Incident Made Us Special Friends For Life

Neighborly love made us known to each other

Khanna’s moved into house number 30. The houses were numbered in a way that the odds were on one side and even on the other.

I was living in number 29 which was just opposite that house. I was living there since 1978 so I knew many people around. It was a warm friendly vicinity of people. It was called Sarva Priya Vihar. To translate in English Sarva Priya means the most loved and vihar means the most loved place to live in

I had quickly become known first because everyone knew my sons and I was the mother of three active sons as though I had no identity of my own then later people came to know me with my own identity as a lecturer in the very coveted Jesus and Mary College which was a constituent college of Delhi University.

I had not met Khanna's family yet. One of my sons Satya had met Mrs. Khanna and was full of praise for her.

It was strange that there were 5 women lecturers who lived on Street 2. One in Chemistry. One in physics, one in business studies that was me, One in English, and now Poonam Khanna in Political Science.

I soon forgot about her and we carried around our work and socializing in the evenings if we had the time.

One fine day I came home and settled down back from work and I heard heavy steps coming into my home. The person was nervous, excited, and also crying. Oh!What a sight it was.

“Who are you?” I asked. “I live opposite your house,” she said.

“Why are you crying,” I said. “Has anyone said anything to you in the neighborhood?”

“No, No’” she said. “It is all my fault” she sobbed. She kept pointing to the house and I could not understand anything. I gave her a glass of water and asked her to calm down which she eventually did.

Her breathing was fast and I waited for it to slow down. Finding her a little normal, I tried again.

I asked her who she was and she said that she was employed to look after Khanna's little girls. They had two daughters. Madam had gone to work and sir also. She was in charge of the kids in their absence.

All was well and she was playing with the children when a ball went flying out and she came to pick it up.

When she came out of the house, the wind blew and the door closed and she was locked out and the two kids were inside. She could not go in and the children could not come out.

In the meanwhile one of the girls in an attempt to look out had one toe stuck in the windowsill and was howling away. She was very afraid. No one was ready to help and people just looked away

She ran helter-skelter and one of the guys who ran the service of ironing clothes for the community on payment called a Dhobhi in the Indian Language was standing and ironing clothes.

He told her to go straight to 29 number house and seek help and on his advice, she was here.

Just by chance my husband had a meeting close by and came to pick up his papers that he had left home by mistake. He heard the conversation between us and we all went to house number 30.

The kid inside was wailing as her foot was stuck and she was in pain. My husband asked for the phone numbers of the owners and we narrated the story and told them if they did not mind we would be breaking open the door or the lock whichever was easier we were not thieves and the condition was grave as their daughters were stuck inside the house.

They gave us permission and on hammering the lock gave way and we went into the house and rescued the children. They were hungry and thirsty and one of them had a bruised foot.

All were safe when the parents came home, they came to thank us.

Sushil and Poonam Khanna were very graceful and wonderful people. As neighbors, they were good company and my children were always welcome to their house.

My middle son would talk for hours with Poonam and at times I wondered how much my son had to share with Poonam. He loved listening to her stories and the children were happy playing with each other. They played board games, did some quizzing, and also went out cycling together.

Poonam and I became good friends since then. I discovered that she was teaching in a college and she was very fond of designer clothes and picked them off the hook as she said she did not have the knack for designing herself.

At that time, I was also running a small boutique and she would just tell me the colors that she wanted and I would send her the clothes ready for her party. She was usually happy with whatever I designed for her.

After a few years, we bought our own place and shifted out of that vicinity into another named Ishwar Nagar, or the land of God. Since then there would be gaps in our meetings but we never forgot each other.

Whenever possible we met but soon the children were growing up and we were both in our own worlds and meetings were reduced.

We never forgot to call each other on our birthdays and had heart-to-heart talks.

I attended her daughter’s wedding and she attended my son’s wedding. The children have now become busy in their own homes as their children are growing up and we have started meeting again more often.

We never hurled abuse for not being able to meet. Whenever we met we would just start where we left off.

Then one day a new club opened especially for senior citizens. The Venu Eye Hospital had started this club and I invited her for a program. She enjoyed it and invited her cousins too.

Now we are all a group again and we meet both at Venu as well as at other venues.

It is like the olden days again. We have formed into a group of people who like to let go and have fun.

At the time when we rescued the children, we were neighbors but we did not know each other. We became very friendly neighbors after that. Even when I shifted we did not lose track of each other.

The one small incident where we were able to help them brought confidence and trust in our relationship that we would stand up for each other whenever the occasion demanded of us.

Poonam has so many wonderful experiences of her life to narrate to us. She is humble, full of life and love. 41 years have passed and she is still in gratitude for that day when we took care of her children. She never fails to narrate the story of how we met and became friends.