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How friendly are your Indian neighbours?

Discussion in 'General Discussions - USA & Canada' started by skalluri, Jul 1, 2009.

  1. skalluri

    skalluri Gold IL'ite

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    Hi Ladies,

    I saw a thred in this forum "Do you smile at Indians when you come across them" after reading that I felt like starting this thread.

    In our Indian culture unlike in American culture, neighbours care for each other, know who we are, and help each other and invite each other on occassions and our children also become friends and play in the evening time together. We take care of our neighbour children when they have to go somewhere and leave their children with us, and we have that initimacy in our culture to ask each other any help.

    Do you see that intimacy here in America with your Indian neighbours, here we cannot even knock their doors without letting them know that we are coming, (unless those neighbours are your close old friends or family relatives etc), neighbours dont care to meet you or know about you when you are not seen for a while. I see they dont feel responsible or respect towards our fellow Indian neighbours being away from our Home land. Everybody is busy in their own lives and just think of their lives and dont care of our fellow Indians.

    I had bad experience in my pregnancy and deliveray time with no help, even the close friends who live 2 hrs away didn't help anything. The present neighbours Indian neighbours also behave like 'touch me not', when we face each other, it is very hard for them to say hi or wave hand from distance. even their kids who are below 8 years dont respond when my son call them from our house. kids are also getting that 'touch me not' nature.

    We are all away from our family in India. we are all living alone, being away from family, through thick and thin we shoud help each other, we have to care each other more than in India realizing the fact we must do it as we have no family around. Rather than this, I see Indians also following American culture of just saying hi when you see them and just forget them afterwards. is it healthy?? lets keep our tradition and respect our culture.

    Whats your expeiences IL ladies?
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2009
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  2. ManuuRaghuu

    ManuuRaghuu Senior IL'ite

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    Hi skalluri,

    Very nice topic ...

    For me and my husband this is one of the main factors that determines how happy we are in US.With no parents or siblings around here...it becomes very difficult to spend time here especially during holidays or weekends...and this is one of the main reasons why we are are also making plans to go back to India soon to stay with our families .

    We are very fortunate to get a couple as our friends who cared for us when we were living in the same apartment community( we recently had to move out from that city )...its a 3 year friendship...they are very hospitable and used to help us with food and other things most of the time..make dinner/lunch ..invite us or send packed food to us whenever we had a travel..recently when we had to move..on the moving day they arranged for our lunch,packed our dinner ... we also used to mutually drop off and pick up each other from airports,to doctor appointments,local shopping,get together for festivals,rituals etc. We also brough their first kid home after my friend's delivery since they did not have a car then... none of us took advantage or lineance of each one anytime so far, treated each other like good family friends..at the same time respected each others priorities and personal space... in this way we did not have any conflicts or problems so far...

    Am not sure whether all neighbors can become good friends ... but to build relationships you must have to open up and must have that hospitable nature.Am slowly learning it now.

    Lets see our other ILites experiences.Am sure many of them might have good friends here:coffee

    Regards,
    ManuuRaghuu
     
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  3. vidhyalakshmid

    vidhyalakshmid IL Hall of Fame

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    Hi Skalluri,
    I too had the same experience like you. When I delivered my baby
    my desi neighbours never bothered to enquire anything. Before delivery
    they sent their daughter to our house for playing once. My husband`s
    friend helped with some food when I was in the hospital.
    I have seen so many Indians while going for a walk. They don`t even
    bother to say Hi or Halo as if we are from different planet.
    Hi MannuRaghuu,
    I like your words that we have to open up and be hospitable.
     
  4. uma321

    uma321 Platinum IL'ite

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    What a coincidence. I live in a place where there is not much Indians. But the best thing is, Even if we see some indians and say HI, they won't even respond. This is regular thing. Even today when we went for a walking, we saw an indian family (All are matured humans) coming opposite to us. The best part is, they didn't bother to say HI when we both said. I got so irritated and told me hubby that I'm not going to say HI to any Indian hereafter. But my hubby's point of view is different. He says, We should definitely say HI to them even however they respond. We do not know we might meet some good guys.

    Even I see an indian regularly when I go to Gym. But he doesn't even care about it. Sometimes when we both see each other, he literally stare at me and go.

    Tired of these people. I made a decision that I don't need any indians as friends. Americans are far better than most of these guys. I have some good american friends. They're really nice people.

    I don't have any experience with neighbors as in our apartment almost all of them are foreigners.
     
  5. ManuuRaghuu

    ManuuRaghuu Senior IL'ite

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    Thanks vidhyalakshmid...

    skalluri,uma321,vishyalakshmid,

    Unless its summer we do not know who is living around us...:)i never had a Indian neighbor so far... had friends living in a few blocks distance in the same community...it is true that some may not respond to "hi" or "hello" when but i think we all should not lose hope and continue to make the initial gesture...what i understood is making eyecontact and smiling is a wonderful initial gesture.Initially i was so shy .. that i would not immediately make an eye contact with someone but later i learned it would give the other person a wrong message that am ignoring them..may be people most of them are shy like me.:hiya


     
  6. madhurisatya

    madhurisatya Silver IL'ite

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    Hello Kalluri,

    I agree with you completely.Even i observed touch me not behaviour in our apartment also.Though we have 60% indian community, i don't have any thick or thin friends.Only i know is my husband's collegues 2 families.We help each other in always.I decided that not to worry that there are no friendly neighbors.
     
  7. skalluri

    skalluri Gold IL'ite

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    Hospitality is great custom in our culture which we tend lose after coming to Western countries like Amercia. is it because of the impact of the western culture.. I see many woman (may be men too) become indisciplined in their routines, lazy, not maintaing good relationships with neighbours or friends, tend to be themselves.

    how many of us are really caring our friends,
    1.do we help when our friend gets pregnant and needs some care duirng some tired days where she couldn't get along by cooking, do we care to take her to hospital when her husband is not available and we are aviable to take care, do we come forward and be proactive to help her.

    2. During delivary, if their parents dont arrive on time due to preterm delivary or any reason, or they may not be in positiion to invite their parents for delivary, do we give our hand to help that couple in those intial critical days where help is certainly neede. I see many couples struggle themselves with no help during these days, I also see couples who dont encourage others to help them in the fear that might be commitment in future to help others.

    3. How many of us care our neighbours who came back from India after 1 or 2 months vacation and landed just that day, do we call them for lunch or dinner. I know many people will suffer on landing day with kids cranky after long journey and dont even have milk in refrigerator and has to shop for food and feed our kids.

    4. How many of us care a pregnant lady by doing baby shower for her, a lifetime happy moment to remember, even the close friends sometimes dont care to do baby shower with their busy busy lives, should our busy routine stop us from making that pregnant lady happy. if her husband really cares, then he may take intitiative to do baby shower surprise pary for her by inviting their friends, if husband dont have this relalization that poor lady has to miss that event, as a woman is it not our duty to make her happy.

    I pity for Indian families who will grow financially by working hard in this country and have better lives building assets back in India but dont have basic nature of caring others. They need to realize how much personal growth they have. In this context we should really appreciate
    Malathy Jey
    for building this site bringing Indian woman all over world to one place to help each other in many ways. Thanks a lot all forum moderators too who are doing great job . We should take them as inspirtion for personal growth.

    regards.
     
  8. shyl

    shyl Senior IL'ite

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    This is a nice thread. I have been in US for 8+ years I have found some good friends and many not so friendly ones too.

    We lived in CA for 4years and then I had very good friends in our Apartment complex. We made friends very easily and helped everyone around. Then we moved to MA and lived here for 3+years and found that people here are not friendly. They have the care not attitude.

    However, in few weeks we will be moving to Richmond,VA and I am hoping I will be able to make some friends. I really miss our culture and it will be nice to have friends from India.

    Kalluri, you have mentioned some very good points. When we move to Richmond, I will atleast make an initiative from my end and try.

    Shyl
     
  9. chaaral

    chaaral Silver IL'ite

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    Hi,
    I agree with many of you abt the indian neighbours, but some are really good. i also have many neighbours who dont talk or even smile,but they are friendly with other americans nearby, so we also dont talk much to them, but any new neighbour we do say hi and smile, who knows this person might be a friendly type.
    thats how we met a very nice couple in our developement and they were very helpful. some neighbours take help but never help us back, so can't do much, their nature is to take advantage.
    i have few friends who live 20 mins away but good friends whom i can trust., even i used to be depressed abt no indian neighbours etc but no point getting depressed, just have to carry on and try to make friends in library, school etc.
    now i try to have some activities for my kid to keep him occupied.
    i also have seen many indian neighbours change behaviour depening on whether we work or stay at home which i find it so silly.

    for my delivery hubby said not to ask any help from anyone, accept it if someone volunteers to help. so thats how we know true friends in times of need.

    Chaaral.
     
  10. krithigat

    krithigat Senior IL'ite

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    Hi Everyone
    Not very friendly to be frank.
    We have moved to this area in nov 2008, by then I was 6 months pregnant.
    There is a indian family next door. We say hi when we meet them out side, they say hi. that is it
    Now my baby is 4 months old , they haven't come home even for once.
    When I say hi, I invite them to come home whenever they r free. ( they never invited us). They also have a four year old boy, and 2 year old. I have 5 old son.(my son loves to play with other kids, he even tried to go to their house, but I said no, since we r not invited). I tell them to come home , the boys can play together.
    At last by june 1st week she came and knocked at the door one day, invited me for satyanarayana pooja, She didn't come inside.
    I told my DH, he said he don't want to come since they haven't come to c our baby.so we decided I will go with son
    So I took my son and went there, the boys played he came back in 1/2 an hour. I invited them to come to our house, that's it.
    again it is Hi, bye
    And more bad experiences after coming here

    I also have very good indian friends, all are 2 hours away
    My friend she came to see the baby with in 10 days when she was born and she asked me anyhting i needed and purchased grocery for a month

    So behaviour depends on the people's nature






     

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