I wouldn’t dare to tread where others have burnt their fingers. So I would not comment on what goes on between India and one of its’s neighbouring countries. Nor would I dwell upon whether or not our immediate neighbours — a miniscule landing area away from our apartment — sees eye-to-eye with us on everyday life.

Those borders are not my business, I insist ... but what I do endlessly rehash are the continuous and never-ending disagreements that arise when the ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ borders are ‘violated’ in our little home.

One would imagine that true to stereotypes for his gender, he (now retired and with plenty of leisure time), would stick his nose in a newspaper or book through most of the morning and ignore everything else that happens around him in the house, in the block and down the street — and only wakes up when someone launches into a discussion about, maybe, the United States presidential campaign on one side of the globe or the demise of the Great Barrier Reef on the other.

One would also imagine that in the other stereotype, the nascent grandmother in me would surface as I look over the balcony at the numerous toddlers in our apartment block and would know their names, ages and other specifics about them — and spend time cuddling them a bit, talking to them, maybe even getting involved in their lives ...

But neither of us gets into a pigeonhole. Instead, we indulge in some cross-border experimentation, stepping out of our ‘roles’ and hopping over to the other side — and thus our life is one prolonged and interminable argument that from time to time splinters off into innumerable minor disagreements and eventually regroups and joins up again and goes back on the same track ...

This is how it could begin:

There is a sudden suggestion by him that we go out for a meal and an immediate comment from me about what I will wear and how I can never find a matching stole. “You know I cannot go out without something to protect me from the cold in winter and from the heat in summer ...”

“I’ll look for your stole in your cupboard,” he volunteers, but I refuse almost before the words are out of his mouth.

“Leave my things alone!” I say with a shudder. “I’ll never find anything again if you ‘arrange’ my stuff!”

At this crucial juncture, however, when I am loudly rejecting his offer and warning him away from my belongings, his nose and eyes are firmly within newspaper space and his ears are shut to the sound of my voice.

So, what do we have an hour or so later? The man of the house indulging his itchy fingers in my cupboard! Suddenly, everything is being aired out, sorted out and I am called upon to clear out clothes I haven’t used for a decade-and-a-half.

The ensuing eruption can be heard and felt down the road — and all the amiable toddlers who had been cooing or playing the drums downstairs and in the adjacent buildings are startled into screams that go on even longer than my rants.

At the end of it, of course, my ‘matching’ stole is still untraceable, but I don’t need it because there is no way I am going to accompany him anywhere for anything!

That problem, at least, is solved.

But what is not addressed is the next bout of cross-border interference. From the clothes cupboard, he progresses to the kitchen cabinets and from there to the book shelves ...

And then, while I spend the next few months trying to locate scarves, or whisks, or notebooks, he takes over what I would like to do and socialises happily with toddlers and neighbours and pets down the road.

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.