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Sometimes you are in for a surprise: Because now and then, what you get is not what you see.

Years ago, I used to live in a Brunei suburb. My neighbours were mundane and middleclass: Teachers and a sprinkling of doctors and a lawyer or two and company executives, businessmen and so on.

Their lawns were trimmed regularly, their garden watered and the laughter of their happy children was a delight to the ears.

Particularly, my wife and I admired the family who lived across the street. We never got to know them really. They kept themselves to themselves mostly.

But we watched in secret envy as the mother, the perfect picture of a school marm, bespectacled and all, played with her two children as the maid cheerfully did the chores around the house. Contentment ruled. All was bliss.

The young ones were well brought up kids and the husband mowed the garden on Sundays, as many of us used hired help to keep the grass down.

The man returned home at the stroke of five and never seemed to leave the house and was apparently content to potter about in the yard.

To us they were a living rebuke. Our children had grown and had left us. We lived alone, my wife and I.

And seeing the perfect family life unfolding before us just across brought us a tinge of remorse.

"Why, oh why did we fail to spend more time with our family, with our growing children when there was a chance? Now look at those people over the road. How happy they are!" That was our constant sense of regret.

Yes, true, we were too busy chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Work, work and more work. All for what? If we only could turn the clock back. Surely we would do it all differently.

But then many of us have these thoughts of reproach visiting us now and then. That is only natural. What if you were given another chance? Would be do it another way? Really? It is only human nature to think so.

However, to get back to my model neighbour. At first I could not believe it.

The amahs began to gossip. Then, people living around noticed things. The model husband was seen pacing the road late into the night and in fact, into early morning.

Then eventually a car would drive up. It is the wife. She would hurriedly get into the house, followed by the long-suffering husband who was by now seemed much incensed.

The neighbours then would hear the inevitable quarrel. Some shouts. A scream or two and after that all was quiet. Lights would all go out. That was becoming routine.

"She has love bites on her neck and everywhere," the amah would gossip the next morning.

"She must have a lover," suggested a neighbour's maid. To that, the informant had no answer. She fell strangely quiet.

Meanwhile, the husband was getting increasingly restless every night as he ambled about the road most impatiently. Now and then, a dog would bark.

They maid was getting more agitated as well. She wanted to say something but was too bashful to come out with it.

Then one day, she could not contain it any longer.

"Yes, my woman boss has a lover. She is another woman," she said quietly as other amahs gasped.

The news spread like wildfire. Eyes behind curtains would be watching the scene with increased interest and excitement.

The house became very quiet. You could not see the children playing anymore.

I do not know how the story ended because we moved away soon after that.

But why am I telling you all this?

Well, as I said at the start. Things are not what they seem many a time. Always look under the carpet and you will discover the real story.

You can apply this maxim to any factor in life. Believe me.

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