“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend” – Henri Bergson
From where I sat in my lawn, reading the newspaper in my serene, blooming cosmos, I could see them clearly—my neighbours, Sneha, Sehaj and Saloni on cane chairs, each with her own porcelain cup, steam rising in little wisps like unspoken thoughts. They sat leisurely, but voices taut with the anticipation of today’s chosen subject.
Sneha observed that new people had moved into House no 1402 the previous night. She described their car as a worn-out relic of the road—rusted with paint patches peeling like forgotten folklore.
Sehej added that the woman’s kurta was nostalgia masquerading as style.
Saloni, as usual, remained sagaciously silent. Her silences weighted with wisdom, but today, something in her stillness felt distinct.
Their words weren’t loud, but they carried, like drifting incense. I heard them not because I meant to, but because they stayed, slipped, and settled like dust in old corners. But something was different that day.
I had already seen the new neighbours. A couple with congenial and compassionate demeanour looked quite decent. That morning, their domestic help swept their narrow driveway after the dust storm. The woman, planting basil at the gate, hummed a hymn that curled into the air like a remembered tune that resonated well with me.
No pomp, no performance. Just a good and gracious smile.
Yet on the other side of the hedge, stories unbridled bloomed. Sneha speculated that the couple had most likely moved to escape some scandal. Sehej supported the idea, suggesting that their silence and stillness concealed more than they revealed. But Saloni spoke her mind that perhaps they just needed some time to settle. Her voice was soft but steady, as though she, too, had once started over and never spoken of it. So unintentionally, I became an active participant, though silent in their conversation.
That pause, hush before the first drop of monsoon rain lingered in the air.
A squirrel squealed, and a pigeon made a dash towards seeds under the neem tree. And then, as if by a gentle twist of fate, the woman from 1402 appeared at the hedge. She held out a muslin-lined basket, warm with the scent of lemons and the aroma of baking. With poised precision, she offered a few freshly baked muffins to relish with their tea. Her manner was friendly and flamboyant.
Sneha was startled. Sehej shared a smile. Saloni held the basket with quiet gratitude. I watched spellbound as the woman waved at me, a gesture of warmth, and returned to her garden, trailing not just scent, but a certain poise, the kind that disarms without intent. There was a long pause; no one spoke. The tea was finished in silence. Sneha, Sehej and Saloni lingered longer than usual, their eyes drifting, not toward the house no 1402, but inward as their vestige exhibited to corners of their own struggles, perhaps never dusted off.
I sipped my own tea, feeling the stillness settle around me.
There’s something revealing in the way we view others—how easily we stitch fiction into facts, how swiftly we fill gaps with imagined versions. Assumptions arrive faster than comprehension. But sometimes, a basket of muffins can unfasten the fabric of follies, of prejudice we’ve nurtured into gossip.
In that silence across the hedge, something had changed. Not regret, not yet redemption, but awareness, flickering like a wick catching light.
As I closed my book and stood to leave, a line surfaced, steady and seamless:
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” – Ian Maclaren
And some battles, I had an epiphany, are softened not with speeches, but with sweetness, and the simple determination to be a phoenix.
Ritu Kamra Kumar
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