💬 A stranger handed me a cup of tea in my first week in the building

We moved into our building in Jersey City in March. First week, nobody said a word in the lift. On the 8th day I took the trash down at 6 and saw 5 people on folding chairs in the parking lot. A man called Pravin waved a steel flask at me and said, sit, there's an extra cup. I was in house slippers, still holding the trash bag. I sat down anyway. They didn't ask where I work or what I earn. First question was which town my family is from. Then an argument about whether the tea needed more ginger. Pravin said yes, a woman called Hema said no. They both turned to me to decide. I'd known them for 4 minutes. I said less ginger. Hema smiled like she'd won something. Pravin went quiet for a bit, then poured me more. That was 6 months ago. Now it's 6 o'clock every evening, and in snow they move under the awning. I bring biscuits on Fridays. Last week I found a chair with my name on masking tape. Pravin's son lives in Melbourne too, about 20 minutes from our daughter. He's already sent her a parcel. My daughter called and said we'd only been there 6 months and already had a network. Nothing deep gets said out there. Water bills, who parked in whose spot, cricket scores. Last month our car wouldn't start at 7 in the morning and Pravin turned up with cables in 3 minutes. Hema has now decided we need to meet her niece. We haven't been told why. I'm slightly afraid. I'll go anyway, and I'll take the biscuits.

Extra cup, I like that Pravin said it the way you would to a friend you already knew. In our building in Pune the first person to talk to us was the security guard, who asked if we had eaten and then told us which tiffin service to avoid.

Mine was the old man in 2B who knocked on my door with a plate of fried fish on night 1. I hadn't unpacked a single box. I ate it sitting on a suitcase, and it was cold and great.