Conversations!

The other day, I met an old lady at the same park. She is one of the kid's grandma, visiting from an Asian country. I was not sure which country though, so I just nodded to wish her a good evening. She was dressed in a familiar way but then, we are quite similar in many ways to our 'estranged' neighbours! She must have been in her early 70s and as soon as she sat down, she started talking.
The talk that we talked was similar to the talk we talk when we visit our home country- essentially a bombardment of the same or similar questions from all the elderly aunts in the house- be it your mom's house or your mom-in-law's!
We sat together for about an hour or so, and in that time, she had asked me where am I from, how many kids I have, where does my husband work, do I have a maid, and what have I prepared for dinner, and also commented on why are we all vegetarian, plus, a small discussion on if it has something to do with my religion!
In return, she had shared with me an invaluable glimpse of her life- she has three sons, and all three are based outside the country. So, she and her husband visit each one of them by turns. Each son has been blessed with three daughters and finally, one has been blessed with a son too! The pride, as she mentioned her grandson and his antics, was clearly audible in her voice. However, it would only be fair to mention that she was equally happy to have her granddaughters in the family! She also told me about the big bungalow that they have back home with most of the rooms kept locked until the kids join them for their summer break every year. I heard about the convenience of hiring a house-help there versus here, and all the hard work that her daughter-in-law has to do to keep the home running smoothly.
There were bits of this conversation which I didn’t understand because of the different accent and cultural references but I did gather that her husband was struggling with a medical condition and yet they had managed to go on their holy pilgrimage some 8 times!
In the middle of all this, I could not help wondering if we all are like that...we find it easier to open up to strangers through internet and all its social engines but fail to strike a meaningful or even an easy conversation with the people who matter the most to us! I was a nobody to this lady, I didn’t know her son and daughter-in-law even though we live in the same community, and this old lady would be leaving soon for her home-country- so why was she telling me all this? Is it our need to be able to talk? Or, is it our need to be able to just confide, just let it out? Or is it the simple, old way of talking where you do not think about issues like privacy and it does not matter who you are talking to?
Whatever the reason of her talking, I felt obliged to listen to her whole story...including her daughter-in-law's wasteful habits, her medical issues and their pets.
At the end of it, I felt I knew her better than I knew her when I saw her one hour before in the park, and also, that if all of us could talk so easily about ourselves, may be, we all could get to know each other better…but do we really want to know others better? Or do we have enough of our battles to fight on and stay busy in our own individual lives?