sending khana(food) to your neighbors. It happens a lot in pakistan and still happens here in USA in our family. Thankfully wherever we’ve lived we’ve always had a few desi neighbors so my mom’s always having my brother (or me when he’s not around) drop off food at the neighbor’s place which is usually at a walking distance. We have umreekan neighbor’s too but we don’t send them food as frequently as we send it to desi neighbors. For the umreekans it’s always like chicken tikka or kababs (which are made every now and then), or veggies from the garden, but for the desi nighbors my mom sends them stuff almost everday (aalo baingan, daalein, etc).
I’m always teasing my mom when she sends stuff (especially when she makes me drop it off and i can’t go in my home clothes (sarr jhar moonh pahar) so i have to change into nicer clothes *just * to drop off food at the neighbors place!) I mean all of that takes time aur meiN kaunsa vailee baithee hoti hoon. I’m a busy person you know! Aur jab mein bahanay bananay lagti hooN, she starts scolding aur nachar mujhe jana parta hai. So my mom strongly predicts that when i get married, i’m not going to be a very social neighbor, and that is very uncultured of me but as long as i live under her roof she will continue to send food no matter how much i tease her!
But i don’t think i’m as bad as my mom thinks cuz yesterday our neigbhor’s young bacha came to drop off pakoray & raita because it’s sawan/barsaat mausam in NY these days, and i had made brownies so i packed that for him and sent it to his house. Of course when i do a good thing, my mom is not around to see it! She was elsewhere in the house and i didn’t wanna go bragging to her about my good deed. I’m kinda modest like that
Anyhow, i just felt like writing today and this topic (sending khana to neighbors) had been lingering in my head for a couple of days so i thought to finally write it. Hope i didn’t bore you but if i did, that’s okay.
Anyway, so does your mom/family also carry the same/similar tradition?
Oh we send food or sweets when we make some to our neighbors, what ever they may be. Last year my neighbor went to Jordan and left her kids not to young at home with their father and I used to always bring food over. When ever we do BBQ we always give our neighbors and during Eid when we make lots of sweets neighbors exchange with each other. When we have a new neighbor we do the same and take our a house warming gift. I think its a nice tradition.
yes my ammi does send food to our neighbours ......almost 8-10 yrs ago , we used to live in a populated area ....n it was really common ....after that we built our own house in suburbs of city n the only neighbours there until now r my two chachas ,...:)
so its like ghar ki baat there ...:)
on special occasions like eid ,...usually everyone gathers at our place n they make stuff ....but normally its like when we make something special ...or something we know some of our cosins like ...we do send them :)
but well ...i'm not good at it so far ....!!
i lived in amsterdam for sometime ...n i had a good neighbour ...so we used to exchange food but not like everyday ...it was like twice a week or so
here in berlin no desi lives around us ,,,,n coz of language barrier i hardly know any of my neighbours :(
anyway ....i really enjoyed your post sehar ...:)
Majestic
we have Arab neighbours next door …n the only thing i know about them is they throw their useless stuff in our backyard n play very loud music …
why don’t u exchange ur place with them …i’ll love to have a neighbour sending bakhlava to me
why don’t you move to the US and then maybe you can
Hey what kind of Arabs are they? from Morocco? Man we NEVER play loud music at ALL, my brothers listen to it only in the car. Man people would really love me as a neighbor
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*Originally posted by Majestic: *
Oh we send food or sweets when we make some to our neighbors, what ever they may be. Last year my neighbor went to Jordan and left her kids not to young at home with their father and I used to always bring food over. When ever we do BBQ we always give our neighbors and during Eid when we make lots of sweets neighbors exchange with each other. When we have a new neighbor we do the same and take our a house warming gift. I think its a nice tradition.
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*Originally posted by funguy: *
Mehnaz, maybe you should try sending dog food for your neighbours, Put some sleeping pills so the dogs may have a good night sleep.
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I was considering poison .... but I will give your idea some thought.
My mom is always making excess food and she always make enough to give to our family friends. Usually have to go in a car though. :)
well we have goray ppl on one side so no food goes there and sikh on the toher so nothing goes there and the rest of the street is white so nothing goes there so nothing comes in as well :p
wow same thing in our family.. but unlike you seher.. we dun have any desi neighbour.. the closest one i knwo are half n hour drive from my house.. so whenever my mom speciall dishes like biryanii or baingun ka khataa, Nihaari, Payeee haleeem or BBQ wagaira so we always drop the food to their house.. and sometimess if we have a party at our place we always invite em if they dun hav convince we actually go and pick em up and drop it as well..
not just that we have russian n chinese family livin in our neighbour in every occassion we make special food so we give em also.. they do the same thing :)
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*Originally posted by waleed: *
well we have goray ppl on one side so no food goes there and sikh on the toher so nothing goes there and the rest of the street is white so nothing goes there so nothing comes in as well :p
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LIshi pishi my maa used to make me do that… lekin i dont anymore cuz i refused to change into better clothes 2 min ka kaam 10 min mein kerna. i agree hun.. we are busy women
oh and wsup with not sending back empty dishes? my mom keeps them until she makes something “sendable” … so we got their dishes sittin at out table for upto a week :o apni dish mein bhej dena.. filhaal unki dish tho bhej do.. na.. aisay tho buri baath hogi urgh..
and once it was perfect timing.. ghar mein “sendable” khana pukka wa tha… neighbour ki dish BHI thi… aur sonay pe suhaga… neighbour bhi agayi.. it couldnt get any better.. so i put the food in their dish and handed it over to the neighbour… ammi gives me a “tumhay tho mein baad mein dekhloongi.. zara terr tho” and puts the dish on the table… the neighbour leaves WITHOUT the dish! apparently what i did was rude… then i had to go as my non presentable self and deliver the food to HER house… i mean REALLY… wsup with that!
there should be NO dish… only disposable plates… sara chakkar hi khatum ho
yeah my Ammii g used to do this in Pakistan… it was so fun and I really like this tradition…
but unfortunahtely here in US we dont have desi neighbors..once we send food to our gora neighbors…it was chicken tikka and they were like this OMG too much red pepper…I dont think so its good for health bla bla… phir hum nay nahi bhejjaaaa
but I miss this tradition…
Recently our home was going through paints and white wash. so kitchen was not useable all day long. Our neibhours sent us food and it was like man-o-salwa for us :) Good neibhours are blessing indeed.
So my mom strongly predicts that when i get married, i’m not going to be a very social neighbor, and that is very uncultured of me but as long as i live under her roof she will continue to send food no matter how much i tease her!
my maa used to make me do that… lekin i dont anymore cuz i refused to change into better clothes 
