Class 12 English Short Story Neighbours

The story Class 12 English Short Story Neighbours perfectly shows that linguistic and cultural barriers do not create any permanent obstacle in deep human relationships. Humanity and love are such universal feelings that link persons beyond borders. It doesn’t look at race, caste, nationality, culture, or language. The love, respect, and kindness of a person towards others beautify the community. In this story, due to different languages, there were some initial prejudices and misunderstandings from the newlywed couple towards their immigrant neighbours. But when they interacted through gardening and pregnancy, the neighbours helped them a lot. Some brilliant examples where the neighbours have transcended such barriers are as follows:

In my view, the young man—an academic writer—used to cynically think that the people in the twentieth century were selfish, isolated, and helpless, as heavily depicted in modern, pessimistic literature. His thought seemed true for a short time when he had just shifted to the new, chaotic community. The people of the community seemed noisy and annoying; they used to make weird noises, shout at each other, and even the small kids had poor sanitation. He felt intellectually superior and detached.

But when he and his wife needed small help, or when they celebrated a milestone like pregnancy, all the neighbours helped them joyously without saying a single negative word. The profound way of counseling each other in need and purely sharing happiness with strangers completely touched his heart and proved his literary cynicism wrong. He found a huge, beautiful difference between his pessimistic intellectual thinking and warm human reality. His thinking radically changed, and he realized that the detached novels for which he was researching had not prepared him for the overwhelming, raw power of simple human compassion and community.

Yes, this profound proverb beautifully applies to the story. Neighbours are the real, everyday companions of life who keep on passing their lives alongside us in various, unpredictable situations. Neighbours are needed in every step of life, no matter the joy or sorrow. They are the immediate companions for a wedding procession as well as a funeral procession, stepping in when distant relatives cannot.

Here in the story, we find the neighbours’ deep involvement in various intimate life events. The story has mainly focused on a close neighbourhood where people are seen living their lives collectively, sharing, and caring for each other despite language barriers. We find the core concept of sharing, caring, and helping among the neighbours in the story. During the vulnerable stage of pregnancy, the young woman was cared for, assured, and presented with gifts by the ethnic people of her neighbourhood. These neighbours are seen passing time teaching each other, enjoying life, and shouting together. Thus, the neighbours in the story are seen as the ultimate, reliable best companions, exactly as mentioned in the proverb.

Multiculturalism is the dynamic way in which a society deals with deep cultural diversity, both at the national policy level and at the grassroots community level. Multiculturalism can take place on a massive nationwide scale or within a nation’s small communities. It may occur naturally through immigration, or artificially when jurisdictions of different cultures are suddenly combined.

I think multiculturalism has become a major, sensitive issue in the present world because, along with beautifully bringing people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds together, it unfortunately often invites various social frictions such as failure to assimilate, ethnic segregation, and severe adaptation issues like school dropouts, unemployment, and high crime rates in marginalized zones. Also, rapid global migration is another massive reason for modern multiculturalism. People travel across different places to find proper facilities and jobs, leading to highly mixed cities. Due to this rapid mixing, many people in a neighbourhood initially don’t know or trust each other, and the deep relation, love, and compassion between neighbours found in past days are sometimes lost to suspicion. However, as the Class 12 English Short Story Neighbours suggests, if people simply open their hearts, multiculturalism can become a society’s greatest strength rather than a divisive issue.

(Here is an essay on community celebration, written by Abisha:)

Celebration of Childbirth in my Community

Childbirth celebration is a deeply rooted, joyous ceremony or ritual used to celebrate the fresh birth of a child with immense joy and happiness. My community is a Hindu-majority community with a vibrant mix of castes like Brahmin, Chhetris, Newar, Magar, etc. Due to the profound influence of Hinduism, my community people worship a newborn child almost as the image of God. Specifically, girls are considered as incarnations of the goddesses Laxmi and Saraswati in my community. Every auspicious work is often started by respectfully worshipping the young girls.

When a baby is born in my community, all the people eagerly congratulate the tired parents and celebrate the event as a grand ceremony. When the child becomes 6 days old, there is a special ritual known as ‘Chhaiti’. On this night, it is strongly believed that God personally comes to write the ultimate future destiny of that baby. So, a traditional oil lamp is burned all over the night, and a paper and pen are carefully kept below the child’s small pillow so that God will come and easily write the child’s bright future. After that, on the 11th day of the child’s birth, there is a grand naming ceremony called ‘Nwaran’. On this holy day, the child is formally given a name by the priest according to astrological charts. When the child reaches 5 to 6 months of age, there is a weaning ceremony in which the child is fed with different kinds of solid foods, especially rice. This significant day is also known as the rice-feeding day (‘Pasni’).

This is exactly how the people warmly and collectively celebrate the miraculous birth of a child in my community, binding the neighbourhood together in shared joy.

Yes, the people in my community also respond with very similar, heartwarming reactions upon pregnancy and childbirth as beautifully depicted in the story. As shown in the text, our local culture also heavily involves the whole neighbourhood in childbirth and pregnancy. In our community, a pregnant woman is highly respected and blessed by all her relatives and neighbours. She is given a lot of traditional advice and intense care. Pregnant women are practically helped in each and every aspect regarding rest, food, and nutrition by the surrounding aunties.

After knowing about a woman’s pregnancy in the community, community members (especially elder women) will regularly visit her at her home and spend quality time discussing the mother’s condition and sharing their own experiences. They celebrate the impending childbirth by generously providing baby shower gifts, nutritious sweets, and warm clothing to the families of pregnant women. They also playfully come up with a lot of potential names for the unborn child, both male and female. In this highly supportive way, the people openly express their deep love and affection upon the pregnancy and collectively celebrate the childbirth in my community, proving that human compassion is universal.