Change

He saw me and began to sob softly, silently. I then saw the tube in his throat and the deformities  wrought around it by cancer. He was fair skinned with salt- pepper hair and beard and appeared to be a Muslim. I was in one of the male wards at the hospice.

He  used sign language to tell me about himself.I could understand only a little. I understood that he had three small children.  There was something about a woman having left. Apart from that, I could not understand much. He kept on trying , repeating the gestures and sobbing soundlessly. I felt helpless, inadequate. Then I asked him his name . He mouthed it and somehow I understood and said it. His face brightened and he  smiled . I asked, "Kashmiri ?You are from Kashmir?" He nodded excitedly , the smile broadening. And then, suddenly,I got a hang of what he had been trying to tell me. That his father had come over to Bangalore from Kashmir , many years ago. He and his siblings had been born and brought up here.They worked in the garment business. That his parents were no more.As I repeated whatever I had understood , he became more and more animated. When I left, he was quite cheerful.

I thought about the morose, sobbing man I had met just a few minutes earlier and wondered about the  fluidity and transience  of feelings and emotions.  A few moments of human interaction  had brought about this change, even though the communication had been so flawed and not really on a deep level. I then thought, that  maybe, what had mattered to  him was not the content or quality of  the communication but  just that somebody had made the effort.

And  I find that I now  know something valuable about human communication and relationships. His gift to me.