Meet Jill. My neighbour, a mother of 2 small girls. Husband doesn't live with them because he is away in the North-East trying to start a tea business. Jill has a brother called Jack, and they were named so by the daughter of the American who founded the orphanage that Jill and Jack lived in. This American called 'Papa' showered these orphans with such things that even normal children with parents wouldn't dream of. There were imported toys, there was muesli and lots of fresh breads and honey and marmalades for breakfast. There was a swimming pool, I am told, in the orphanage. And other things that made that place a palace.
Jill and Jack grew up and had to move on in life. Jill worked at a call centre where she met her to-be husband from Assam and eventually married him. The guy's family has still not accepted Jill (it must now be 5 years that they are married). Jill and Jack are not really in touch, from what I am told. They both live in Delhi of course, but aren't emotionally close.
Ever since we moved into this new flat (I am blessed to be living here), Jill has been the kind of neighbour you would NOT want. Instead of being a helpful one, she actually started asking favours. Just the second day early morning, she put her baby in the arms of my sleepy husband, and asked us to take care of her while she went to run a quick errand to the nearby Jail!! We had cartons all over the place, we were exhausted from moving apartments, and we were finally enjoying a good sleep when she did this utterly bizarre thing. She not only woke us up, she made sure we were wide awake, the baby figured out her mom was away and she was with complete strangers and cried her lungs out for nearly an hour. We did all we could, but we couldn't help being new, we didn't have her pacifier, we didn't have her favourite toy, Damn it, we didn't have her mummy!!! Mummy Jill hadn't bothered to leave a mobile number we could call.
Thereafter, every single day (or so it feels) Jill has been coming to ask favours. Dabbu, the baby was left with us one more time, many many litres of purified water were taken from us numerous times because of a water purifier she was too lazy to get fixed. And phone chargers have been borrowed on various occasions as well.
Then she goes to meet her husband (without informing him that she's coming). She asks me not to tell her maid that she is gone (so that she wouldn't demand her salary from Jill), she didn't even inform the older daughter's school bus driver for the same reason. Turned out, she hadn't informed her landlord (who asked us regularly if she had returned... she had left the house windows open, and she hadn't been paying the rent) either, nor the cable operator. This woman left with her daughters with no fixed date of returning.
She wouldn't answer calls, she would use unknown numbers to get in touch. The landlord was threatening to call the Police to break into the house. And everyone was disgruntled. She never actually came on the dates she said she would. What was supposed to be a trip of maximum 2 weeks got extended to nearly 4 months.
The older daughter has been expelled from school for missing so many days of tuition. Jill is back and back to her natural ways. Lazy, irresponsible and careless. She came today morning to get her phone charged again, and I said yes with some hesitation.
Then as I plugged her phone in, I decided that I have had enough with her. In the name of help, she is taking advantage. As my husband puts it, "We might want to help people. But not when someone on the street taps on your shoulder and asks if you could please tie his shoelaces since he was too lazy to do it." We have tried helping Jill address the real problem. We tried helping her find technicians to fix her water purifier. She didn't use the help. We reminded her many times to buy a new original charger. She didn't. This is one person who does NOT want to help herself. She wants to sit there watching TV all day and screaming at her daughter.
I think Jill spends energy thinking how others can help her. How she needn't move an inch while others go out of their way to fix things for her. I think it comes from her childhood days when all was taken care of for her, and she was fully spoilt. She wasn't taught to take responsibility, and so she isn't. She is in fact demanding that she be 'adopted'.
Such a neighbour is frustrating. The 3+ months that she was not here were blissful for me. She returned yesterday, and today she has begun her begging. So I decided to tell her how I felt about things, and how I want to discourage her from knocking on our door so regularly.
I talked to her, she tried to listen. She put it down to the kind of people my husband and I were. I had guessed that she wouldn't understand. In fact I won't be surprised if she becomes hostile and passive-aggressive and starts doing little things to avenge herself. I will pray that she believe me when I say that in times of emergencies and crises we are ready to help. But we don't appreciate dependence, clinging and parasite-like behaviour.
She apologised, attributed the trouble we faced to the kind of people we were and said she won't come to us again. I am interested in the third phrase. Hopefully, she won't come to us again.
P.S: As expected, I was talking to her alone, Meghu chose not to support me. He maintains that he would have been assertive the 6th time Jill came asking for help. I am not sure of that. What I know is that he will enjoy the benefits of my actions without making any effort.
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