We, the South Asians, all look the same.

5 min read.

My wife has two younger sisters named Sheerin and Nasreen. They are working as teachers in Lahore. Though real sisters, but they look very dissimilar to each other.

My wife, 5’ 8’’ tall, is little bit corpulent. She has a round face. According to our dentist, she has a super set of teeth. The adopted colour of her hair is dark brown, which completely contrasted her with her sisters.

Sheerin is slight and delicate looking, and taller than her siblings. Her face is oblong-shaped. She has Chinese hair with shiny look.  She has stentorian voice. She would not mind, if I make some candid comments about her teeth but her older sister might not appreciate it. Thus, I say this with some diffidence that her teeth albeit not crooked but are not straight either. The fact is that they are not as good as of her sisters. Another conspicuous distinction between her and her sisters is that she always keeps her chin up. Very rarely you would see her moaning about anything.

Nasreen, the third one, is shorter in height than her older sisters.

It may be safely said that the three sisters, who are completely unlike in their outward looks, have only one common thing among them i.e., they are of South Asian ethnicity. So am I.  

 Normally, they visit us every summer, but sometimes biennially. They stay with us for about seven weeks. The occurrences which I am going to recount took place quite a few years ago. We had moved the house, and sisters-in-law were coming there for the first time.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and our son went to the airport to pick up his aunties. As they were coming from the place where during that time of the year the temperature is about 45C, after arriving in our paradisal town, they breathed cool air and felt refreshed.

We are very lucky we have very neighbourly residents around us.

On our left, the neighbour is called John, who was retired and lived with his wife in the property for many years. (They have since sold their house and moved to a bungalow ).

On our right, the couple are now in their seventies. Before the pandemic, they would go to Europe for long holidays. The husband is called Michael and the wife’s name is Jenny.

In the house next to Michael, we have a younger neighbour. His name is Danny and is in his forties.  He runs a shop in the shopping precinct to which we can walk through a narrow lane leading to the main road. On one side of the lane there are listed houses. He has two dogs, and he walks them regularly twice a day. Sometimes, he visited me to discuss some local issues. His wife has a job in the town. They have one daughter, who is now in the University.

Mark lives with his wife in the house in our front. He was not of the retirement age and still is not, but for some reasons he has not been working full time. He owns rented properties. His wife works for the Local Authority.

Coming back to Sheerin, my middle sister-in-law, she got up early next morning and went out for a walk. Her meandering took her to the main road and the shopping precinct. Danny, who had just opened his shop, saw Sheerin. The encounter appeared to be fortuitous. Addressing her, he said:

“Good morning, Mrs Chaudhry.”

Sheerin did not try to correct him, and whispered insouciantly:

“Good morning”.

Danny continued:

“Look Mrs Chaudhry, the Local Authority is wasting the tax-payers money by erecting the speed breakers in our streets. You hardly see any traffic here.”

Sheerin listened to him with rapt attention and concurred with him smiling surreptitiously. After a bit, she said bye and left.

A couple of hours later, our cleaner, who had started working for us a few months before, rang the bell. Sheerin opened the door. The cleaner entered, and after saying good morning, she asked:

“Mrs Chaudhry, should I start from upstairs or downstairs?”

Sheerin turned her face slightly to the side and chuckled:

“You may start from upstairs.”

 When she reached upstairs, she saw the wife and looked askance at her.

At about twelve noon, our gardeners came. As I mentioned in my previous post, we had two gardeners, one in his sixties and the second one in his twenties.

Sheerin went out of the house for a stroll. The senior gardener saw her and said:

“Good afternoon, Mrs Chaudhry, how’re you?”

Sheerin replied:

“Good afternoon, I’m fine.”

The senior gardener continued:

“Mrs Chaudhry, your lupins are being eaten by ants. Please use diluted Fairy Liquid to get rid of them.”

Sheerin replied with a straight face that she would.

The gardener advised her further:

“Please don’t bin the used teabags. Use them to feed the flower plants. It does not matter much if you don’t open them.”

Thanking him, Sheerin responded:

“We didn’t know about it. We used to throw them in the food bin.”

Next morning, I left for work, and so did the wife.  After breakfast, the sisters-in-law went to the town centre for shopping. They were already familiar with the buses and the town centre. After lunch, they returned.

Jenny, our neighbour on the right, rang the bell holding a big packet under her oxter.

Sheerin opened the door. The neighbour, addressing her by my wife’s first name, said:

“As no one was at your house, the postman delivered the packet to us.”

Sheerin responded:

“Thank you very much for receiving the packet on our behalf”.

I could easily conclude that we, the South Asians, all look the same.

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Ps: The next interesting story will be posted at 11 am on Sunday 17 October 2021: It is titled: In my life so far, I’ve had mostly excellent neighbours.

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