During my morning walk yesterday, a strange thing happened. A senior citizen whose name and flat number I did not know, suddenly wished me good morning. That took me by surprise. In the past several years whenever we crossed each other, he never wished me. In Delhi’s Vasant Kunj, where I live, it is not fashionable to wish each other. Neighbours have perfected the art of looking away when a neighbour is illegally constructing an additional room on the first floor, when the ground floor man has done so and the top floor wali is raising another floor.In Vasant Kunj wives play a very important role in everything. So I rushed back home to consult my wife about this extraordinary development. ‘‘I hope you have not wished back?’’ She asked, sharply. ‘‘How could I do that without consulting you?’’ ‘‘You remember you answered the good morning wish of that lawyer. And the next day he landed in our house with some so-called attestation form which later turned out to be a guarantee for a bank loan’’.‘‘But dear, it may just happen that he read my middle and might have liked it’’ I said, with all humility. ‘‘You are a fool’’, she said. You don’t realise that you have no readership in VK, it is a shop-keeper’s colony, full of the neo-rich and the neoliterates’’. ‘‘But dear, he may be a genuine admirer,’’ I said. ‘‘There is nothing genuine in Vasant Kunj. Everything is false.’’ ‘‘What about the senior citizens?’’ ‘‘To be an elderly citizen in VK is a stigma. Nobody wants you, even your son is waiting for you leave for your heavenly abode. He has a young daughter who is dying to occupy your room.’’ While we were discussing all that, the door-bell rang. My wife opened the door. It was the same man who wished me in the morning.With maximum humility, he said: ‘‘Madam, I am your next-door neighbour. I am an insurance man. If you have any problem.’’Following my wife’s instructions, I have now started going for my morning constitutionals — in the evenings.
