My Neighbor

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This chap is a real skinflint. A scrooge if ever there was one, with a streak of Shylock in him. He counted his pennies, again and again. I have seen few, who arriving by air, take an city bus to home (of course his air tickets were gratis, his daughter in Mumbai sent them.

He was target for much gossip, and his miserliness assumed legendary proportions. His name itself had become synonymous with the definition of the tight-fisted. Where will he take his treasures? his grave? I muttered to myself, as he sat beside me, liberally helping himself to a small packet of salted peanuts I had bought to munch on the park bench. He would wait, as patient as a stork for me to finish my morning newspaper, then borrow it – and sell them off, when they had accumulated into a sizable pile, to a rag-picker for a price, after an endless haggling and harangue.

I just shook my head, as did all my neighbors. There was no reforming his ilk. They are born that way, and enjoy staying that way. I wasn’t wealthy then, nor now. Liberal within my means, charitable to an extent possible: middle class life has its limitations on budget. But careful spending, and prudent saving – these are the key words bandied often. I and my wife, we made though, and stayed with: no matter how tough, we would stick to this we said – at every birthday of our only daughter, we would feed the children housed in an orphanage in our town. Thus it came about, that each year, we set apart four to five thousand to give one sumptuous lunch to around thirty or so small kids. Once or twice, over the next seventeen years, we kept our word, and religiously, the ritual was continued, occasionally with a gift a few stainless steel water jugs or mugs – plates, and once, thirty three blankets. The matronly woman, in-charge of the ‘home’ and its populace of under ten destitute and abandoned wards, beamed with radiance, as if the gifts were given to her for personal use: she was utterly selfless, and doted on the kids, shedding real tears when one or other inmate died, or adopted.

The neighborhood had changed. Newer flashier buildings, glinting cars stood where bicycles or scooters one parked. Time had moved, many graduating from one economic classification to the next higher. But my miserly next door neighbor, stayed his course. Niggardly as ever, even more now with advancing years. He stopped going to the park, or even walking over to my place for his newspapers – I sent my small daughter to run over and deliver it everyday. He just peered through his window, waiting for me to finish reading. He pushed aside his frayed ancient cotton curtain, peered through a pair of archaic spectacles, and nodded – his way of conveying thanks for the daily quota of newsprint.

One Sunday, the weekly crossword grid I attempt, was bit tougher than usual, and I was tense as the inevitable delay in paper delivery would trigger some repeated stares and glares, magnified by that monstrous pair of concentric lenses he sported. I gave up trying to solve the grid, and asked my daughter to pass on the paper to ‘grandpa’. In a few minutes she was back, paper still in hand. I knew the score. It hit me hard. Even though we as a family had only maintained a low key relationship with this cranky man, I know we would miss him. His presence was so assuring, a perma-link to bygone eras.

His daughter cam down and in a few days, everything was over. In a few months the plot was sold off, and the familiar house demolished.

One month after he died, my daughter became eighteen. She had become a smart jean clad MTV generation clone now, and her concept of celebrating birthdays now was peer influenced – in fancy places, with foot – tapping jarring music. But her mother and I, still went ahead with our commitment, and arranged for lunch at the orphanage – the teen however, went to arrange for her ‘shake a leg’ do

The orphanage had some new faces, some familiar ones were gone. To other homes, guardians, or to other worlds. Along with lunch, each of the floor squatting children had a shining new stainless steel glass filled to brim with vanilla flavored milk. Watching the tiny fingers wrap themselves around the outsized tumblers, slurping on the sweetened beverage, was touchingly amusing.

The new matron led me to her tiny cabin: donors are now compulsorily required to sign a ledger, listing the donations. It wasn’t mandated in earlier years, but now the rule was enforced, thanks to a small governmental grant now coming the way of the orphanage. I sat down on a sole rickety cane chair, with the ledger on my knees. I wrote my daughters name and entered the note – lunch and thirty two steel utensils were gifted. Out of human curiosity my eyes scanned the ledger entries, and was quite amazed at the number of well wishers and donors who regularly donated to the cause of unfortunate. On every other page of that thick tome, one name stood out. Every month, lunch, every national festival, Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanthi and so many more – clothes, feeding bottles, water filters and so on.

The sponsor? In senile arthritic handwriting was written Narasimha Moorthi – of 443 / 3 Bishop Compound. My former neighbor.