Pia Padukone - Where Earth Meets Water

“I’m sending you a laptop computer, Kaminiji. It’s one of the ones that folds, so it won’t take up any more room than is necessary in your flat. I’m also sending a boy to teach you to use it. It’s been fifteen years since True Stories of Make Believe. Leave a legacy, Kaminiji. Two books are insufficient. A trilogy is a legacy.” Kamini sighs and shifts her weight as she stands hunched over the phone in the kitchen. She is roasting chilies and the smell is starting to suffocate her. She turns toward the stove, pulling the phone cord with her, and applies a few more drops of oil to the pan, where they sizzle, thin wisps of gray smoke rising from the shiny red shards. She will dry these chilies out to make a pickle, allowing them to marinate properly for six months before her granddaughter Gita visits with her boyfriend in May. Boyfriend, Kamini muses. What an insipid word. It is so wishy-washy, so noncommittal. She has spoken to Gita about her relationship, and while Kamini agrees that there is no need to rush into anything, the word boyfriend makes her grimace.

She steps back and wipes her forehead with the tail of her sari.

“Pinki, my daughter has been out of the house for thirty years, and her children only visit occasionally. I haven’t been around children for such a long time. I don’t know how they act, interact. I don’t know their interests anymore. I’ve nothing to give.”

“Nonsense,” Pinki says, puffing on his pipe, a habit he hasn’t weaned himself off of even with the recent ever-insistent warnings of cancer. “Okay, you’ve been languishing. Maybe you’re a bit rusty. But practice on the laptop—get your fingers and your mind oiled and the words will pour out of you faster than you know it. This way you can send me stories and I can edit them as they come through. We can have a running dialogue. If you’re stuck, we can chat through the computer. It’ll be much better this way.”

Before she knows it, the doorbell is ringing and her chilies are scalding.

“Arey, you sent it now? As we were speaking?” Kamini asks, wiping her hands on a dishrag.

“The boy only left an hour ago. He made good timing. Good luck with it. I’m sure you’ll be a natural. I’ll call you later with details about deadlines, content, etc.”

Kamini hangs up the phone and answers the door. A young man stands behind it, clutching a rectangular satchel.

“Hi, auntie,” he says. “Parcel from Mr. P. L. Devindra.”

“Yes, come in,” she says, glancing at the floor.

He removes his shoes dutifully.

“Where would you like it?”

“What about there?” She points to the small round dining table, vacant unless she has company. The boy kneels down and unzips the bag.

“Please sit, auntie,” he says. “I’m Raj. I’m to teach you to use this.”

“Just a moment.” She scurries into the kitchen and puts the chilies onto a flat plate, flicking them with a few drops of vinegar. When she comes back outside, Raj is opening up the laptop like a clamshell, the black keys glittering like glass.

“Wait,” she says. “You’ll have to go very slowly with me. Step-by-step. How did you do that?”

Raj smiles. “There’s a little catch here in the front. You push, slide, and the computer is open. Next, plug it in, like this. And finally, the most important thing—the power button.” Raj pushes it, and sound reverberates throughout the sitting room. Kamini jumps back while Raj chuckles. “You’ll get used to it. I’m assuming your neighbors have wireless connection, so until we hook yours up, we’ll borrow theirs.”

“I should take notes.”

“There’s really no need. It will all come to you. Just watch me and then you do it. I’m to stay here until you get the hang of things.”

“I’ll put on some tea,” Kamini says, and sweeps into the kitchen. “Don’t do anything until I return.”

* * *

It quickly becomes an urban legend: Kamini Auntie, Kamini Amma, Kamini Dadima, has email. She has a Facebook page. She knows how to instant message. Everyone wants to email her and they do; she can barely keep up with her correspondence. Her nieces and nephews, scattered about the country, learn about her latest venture and write to her. Gita and her sisters, Ranja and Maila, email furiously when they learn their grandmother has learned to type and send emails, but the messages peter off when other things arise or when Kamini sends them only three-sentence responses to their three-paragraph notes. She just doesn’t have time to respond and she doesn’t want to leave anyone out. Savita prefers calling, as she has every Sunday morning since she moved to America, but wants to encourage her mother, so she sends a few lines off every now and then. Kamini is exploring a whole new world, one at the very reaches of her fingertips. Her typing is getting faster, and she is getting increasingly curious, though Raj has warned her of the dangers of chat rooms.

Even her morning routine has been completely altered. She still awakes, does her ritual and has her tea. But while the bucket is trickling to the top, she turns on the laptop and checks her email. Raj has taught her to read the newspaper online, check cricket scores, read book reviews, even find comments and fan websites about her own book. There is no end to what one can learn. Her bucket usually spills over while she is engrossed with family letters—she will never learn to call them emails—and when her bath is over and her hair braided and pinned back atop her head, she settles back to the round table and taps away.

On her second week, Pinki rings. “Well, Kaminiji, settling in? Raj told me you were a natural.”

“It’s a lot to take in, but it’s very exciting. I’ve learned a lot already.”

“That’s wonderful. But my question is—what have you written other than emails? Any seeds of inspiration? Pearls of wisdom? Iotas of thought? See, this is why I’m an editor and not a writer.”

Kamini chuckles. “I honestly haven’t given much thought to the stories. I’ve been rather distracted.”

“Well, I don’t expect them to come overnight. Take some time and think them through. Spend time with your family, around young ones. See what sorts of things they are dealing with these days. What if I gave you six months to come up with a new collection? Nine months? One year is the latest I can go, I’m afraid.”

“Within the year, Pinki. I promise. I’ll come see you in three months with notes and an outline. Okay?”

So Kamini works furiously. She offers to babysit for her frenzied grandnieces and grandnephews, telling her family to drop the children off at her place if they have errands to run or friends to see. She watches them interact with one another and notes how they play with her. She gently pries handheld video games out of their hands and teaches them to play cat’s cradle with a piece of string, shows them the simplicity of jacks using backyard stones, introduces them to chess and checkers. She chats with them about what they fear at school or under the bed, what they want more than anything in the world, other than the next electronic game for their handheld console. She reads them stories from her past two volumes and inquires about their favorites. It is the first time she’s spent time with small children since Gita, Maila and Ranja grew up, and it is difficult at first to remind herself of how to associate with these smaller creatures, but she falls into it like a rhythm.

After three months she compiles her notes and scratches of observations from her family and types them up. Then she sits at her table, ignoring the siren call of email, and writes two solid stories in preparation for the meeting with Pinki. She takes a taxi to his office in Friends Colony and sits with him at his desk as he pores over them. At the end of the hour, he sits back, twirling his mustache and gripping his pipe between his teeth.