Few months back my parents were in the US for a vacation. It was their first time here.

Around the same time we also had a new neighbor moving in to the apartment next to ours.

One evening, we were relaxing in our living room having tea. Our porch door was open. We suddenly saw our neighbor’s dog running around and entered our porch. Apparently she had gotten off the hook to which she was tied to.

The lady came running behind and apologized us for the incident. But my dad being very fond of dogs , started patting the dog and playing.

My mom in typical Indian style, asked the lady to come inside the house and offered her tea and biscuits. Neighbor refused but being a very chatty lady back home my mom initiated small talk with her and asked more about her. Though they had communication issues due to accent, both of them seemed to get along well.

They spoke about city, work , weather etc etc !

Since then almost everytime the neighbor took her dog out, she stopped by our porch and had a chat with my parents. Her dog also seemed to like us. It jumped on my dad and licked him whenever they met.

It was a welcome change to my parents as well as they got to talk to someone other than me especially when I was at work. They talked about their experience of the trips we took and things about Bangalore.

I was glad incident turned out to be a friendly one. I didn’t expect my parents especially my mom to be so outgoing with someone from another country being the South Indian lady she is.

Below is a picture from one of those days: