Who’s my neighbour | Today, the word ‘neighbour’ has lost its meaning; Proximity and familiarity have been replaced by solitude and separation

When I was younger, my grandfather used to tell me stories about his neighbours. He, along with my grandmother and my father, their only child, lived in a large joint family in Bengaluru, long before it grew into the sprawling urban city. Life back then was slow, patient and in a way harmonious. Most of my grandparents’ neighbours were family, far relatives and settlers from other parts of the country. One story my grandfather loved recounting was of his mother and their neighbour, an elderly Sindhi aunty. Every morning, after finishing their routine work, the two women would stand on either side of a low brick wall and talk, despite not sharing a common language. My great-grandmother knew neither Hindi nor English, and the aunty across the wall knew no Kannada. Yet their conversations were expressive, almost animated, filled with hand gestures, nodding, laughter, and an intuitive understanding of each other’s lives. My grandfather always found this amusing, but to me, this felt like something more than a funny anecdote, more like a powerful storytelling on human connection and coexistence.

Today, the word “neighbour” seems to have lost its meaning. I do not share the same relationship with my neighbours as much as my parents and grandparents. I’ve never had any neighbourly relationship that qualified as genuine human interaction. I know who they are; I am eligible to be their witness for a passport verification by the police. Yet our interactions rarely move beyond cursory hellos and polite goodbyes, or the occasional encounter at a wedding or a festival. I cannot remember the last conversation I had with my neighbour. But I can remember the last email I sent, the last video I saw and the last photograph I took. Perhaps this is because relationships with neighbours are rarely documented. They do not leave behind timestamps or digital trails; they live in fleeting conversations, shared companionship, and gestures that eventually fade into memory.

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Much of what neighbours once represented was comfort and accessibility. As my grandfather used to point out, men found drinking buddies and women found gossip buddies. There was a sense of organic companionship that probably lasted decades for many families. Children became friends organically because of their geographical proximity and familiarity. My father grew up with many friends who were their neighbours’ children (what we colloquially term as “road friends”). They travelled to and fro from school, played after school and were even reprimanded for being naughty by both families across the brick walls.

But that idea seems to have evolved over time. We no longer view our neighbours the same way; the proximity and the familiarity have been replaced by solitude and separation. People are far too busy with their lives to chat across walls. Children must be set up on playdates because they are no longer able to form friendships organically. Adults prefer building walls and boundaries over silly things like language, politics and religion. Real conversations with neighbours have been replaced by video calls, text messages and the constant need to stay connected to what is deemed socially validated through technology.

In that sense, the word “neighbour” is a quiet marker of loneliness, and a reminder of how people have gradually distanced themselves from those living right next to them.

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I don’t intend blame technology for this loss of “neighbours.” Many of us move homes, shift cities, and even cross countries. We become busy in our everyday lives. But what remains consistent, across geography, time, uncertainty, and change, is the conversation waiting across a brick wall, if only one is willing to look that way, and make the effort to speak.

The writer is a Bengaluru-based lawyer