Growing up in the 1990s, one of the most exciting events for me as a child was getting a new neighbour. In our small apartment building, new faces meant new stories, new friendships, and sometimes, bonds that lasted a lifetime. Some families that moved in during those years became so close to us, they felt like extended family.
But there was one time when things unfolded very differently.
The first crack in that distance came unexpectedly. One afternoon, my younger brother, in the midst of his carefree play, simply wandered into her apartment. I followed out of curiosity, worried he might be intruding. But instead of annoyance, she greeted him with a gentle smile. That was how the invisible wall began to crumble. Her interactions with Mom increased. We learned she worked late evenings — “graveyard shifts” as the adults called them — and spent her mornings resting. That explained the closed door. But after school, it was a different story. My brother and I would visit, and she welcomed us without hesitation. Sometimes she gave us chocolates, sometimes she just chatted while we played. We didn’t even know her name — to us, she was simply “Sweet Aunty.”
For a while, it was all easy and warm. Until the day Mr. Dhage came.
Dhage was the sort of neighbour who carried gossip the way some people carried prayer beads — with dedication and frequency. That afternoon, he leaned into our living room and asked my mother, in a tone dripping with intrigue, “Do you know who that lady next door is?”
My mother said she seemed nice, lived alone, worked hard.
“She’s a bar girl. Beer Barwali,” he said, with the air of someone revealing state secrets. “I saw her at the bar last night.”
I remember my mother’s silence. I remember Dhage’s voice filling it with more insinuations, his words turning a neighbour into a cautionary tale. The news spread quickly — faster than kindness, faster than truth. Soon, even the society’s managing committee knew.
After that, things changed. We were told not to visit her. Our afternoons together became fewer, then stopped altogether. I still remember her friendly talks, the candies, the way she treated us with patience. But those memories became tainted in the eyes of the adults around me, all because of a label — Beer Barwali.
Even then, in my child’s mind, I sensed she was struggling. Maybe she was escaping a bad relationship. Maybe she was carrying loneliness like a second skin. Maybe she was just doing what she could to survive in a world that wasn’t kind to single women. The 90s were not a forgiving time for women who lived alone, and the neighbourhood offered little understanding, let alone support.
What I couldn’t understand then — and still struggle with now — was how quickly kindness can turn into judgment. I also wondered: if Dhage saw her at the bar, wasn’t he there too? How different was he from her? I never found the answer.
A month later, she moved out quietly. No goodbye, no explanation. Just gone. All that remained was the memory of a woman who had been “Sweet Aunty” to us — until the day she was reduced to a name whispered behind closed doors - Beer Barwali. A name that had nothing to do with who she really was.
