How A Cup Of Coffee With My Neighbour Culminated Into Friendship

A lot can happen over a cup of coffee, as they say. Though here, I do not mean a romantic date, but some ten minutes of time with another woman, who need not be your bestie but someone you are comfortable with. It need not be a personal conversation but a simple and at ease tete-a- tete on any topic. On World Mental Health Day, would like to share my opinion and experience with all of you.

Generally, it is assumed that when two women are chatting either it will be about “people”, the daily chores or kids, but actually it’s not at the core of this conversation. Then what it could be? Well, it isn’t that hard as you think!

Coming on to my personal experience, I have a neighbour who has a one-year-old kid. She holds a very good position at a travel operations company (I won’t mention her as a “working mom” as I believe that all moms are working basically). Her journey reminds me of mine, taking a short maternity break and again joining the office. Those sleepless nights and swollen eyes, and on top of it the total physiological and the hormonal changes….damn ! All those stress pointers were in sync as I had delivered my son while pursuing my research studies.

In a tough phase at times, we all feel that we wish we had “someone” who would just ask, “How are you today”? or “Can I make a cup of tea/coffee for you?" Even though we have enough support from family but sometimes you don’t want to hear, “It's okay, happens with everyone!" But I was experiencing it for the first time, so it was getting all messed up at certain times. These changes (and the changes were tough) which I have mentioned above were happening for the first time with me, so I was taking time to getting used to them, as hormones create havoc in your body and stress eclipses your rational thinking.

In a tough phase at times, we all feel that we wish we had “someone” who would just ask, “How are you today”? or “Can I make a cuppa tea/coffee for you?"

Recently, one morning when I was kind of free I reached out to my neighbour and now a ‘friend’ and asked her if she would like to join me for a “cuppa”. I was smiling when she agreed. We took our steaming hot coffee cups and settled down on the floor and our conversation began.

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Hey wait a minute, did I just say “conversation”? Nah…there was a few seconds of typical Bollywood movie silence initially. “After a long time, someone gave me my morning coffee in hand," she said. I felt nostalgic as if my version 1.0 was talking to me. I said nothing to her and smiled. Later we spoke about her work, my freelancing, and life. Those ten to fifteen minutes brought us closer, refreshed and made us energetic to face the day ahead of us. We repeated the engagement after a month, but “over a cup of tea” and this time, that she made. Here, I am not talking about the typical “give and take” policy, but these incidents actually happen impromptu! We hardly see each other (thanks to our busy lives), despite being neighbours.

I really look forward to having our “silent conversations” to refuel ourselves. So the big ‘Q’ is what connected us here? Well, the answer to this is quite simple; womanhood and understanding for fellow women without any judgement. I really hope to have short and sweet meetings of ours soon. Strange na? But it’s true as well. A lot can happen over a cup of coffee!

As rightly said, “Sometimes unspoken words speak the loudest.” –Anonymous.

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

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Kaveri Purandhar is currently working as an Outreach Editor (Hindi) for SheThePeople.TV. She hosts a talk show named “Abhigyaan”. The views expressed are the author's own.