Tomorrow's Another Day!

“I just don’t understand”, Sharada aunty grumbled, as I showed her how to use the web. “This is all very confusing!”

“Come on, aunty”, I tried to encourage her to click on the Recipes link. “Why don’t we see what recipes there are online? Maybe you will find something interesting?”

“Yes, yes, will they have salt-less, oil-less recipes for oldies like me?” she challenged.

“Why not? Let me show you how you can get to them”. I did a google on “low salt low oil recipe”, and the search results appeared on the screen. “See?”

“Hmm!” she muttered, playing down the fact that she was quite impressed.

We clicked on one of the links, and were taken to a nicely done up site, which had reams of useful information on cholesterol and exercises. That definitely got her hooked. She wanted me to repeat all the steps slowly, and wrote them down neatly in her bound notebook.

After rewarding me with a hot cup of her masala tea, she saw me off.

“I will practice all night!” she declared dramatically, as she closed the door behind me.

Sharada aunty was a nice, but slightly crotchety widow on the wrong side of 50, who lived next door to us. Her son, who lived in the US, had gifted her a computer so that she could keep in touch with him and her grandson regularly. Smart as she was, the computer completely foxed Sharada aunty.

I offered to teach her in the three weeks that I was home between semesters, my tuition fee being a cup of her famous masala tea.

My first few classes were spent in explaining all the basics, which she seemed to grasp pretty well. However, on the third day, I found her wringing her hands in despair.

“I had created a file with all my expenses. Now it has just disappeared! What am I going to do? I should have stuck to my trusted diary!” She was most upset.

“Don’t worry, I will get it back for you.” I reassured her.

The Recycle bin was empty, so I did a search, and voila! Her file was sitting pretty in the Program Files folder!

I chuckled, and moved the file back to her folder.

“Aunty, if you are not careful, this is what will happen!”

I showed her the problem. She pouted silently, but I could see that she understood what had happened. I had won the first battle – she realized that things did not just happen mysteriously on the computer.

Sharada aunty was a good student. She diligently took down notes, practiced hard, and asked me questions every day.

“Aunty, if you appeared for your BE with me, you would definitely pass with distinction!” I joked, as I showed her how to send mail to her son.

The next day, she was very excited, and could hardly wait for me to enter her house.

“See, I sent and received mail from my son! And my grandson has sent me a drawing. See, I have printed it!” The drawing was a cute little stick figure playing ball.

Soon, her fridge was plastered with her grandson’s drawings, which she spent a great deal of time printing and arranging.

It was time for me to go back to college.

*-*-*

I was back after my semester exams, and I bumped into her as I entered the lift.

“Hi Aunty! How are you?”

“Fine, fine!” she was very pleased to see me. “So you’re back. How were your exams?”

“OK”.

We had reached, and the lift door opened. Waiting for Sharada aunty to exit, I became aware of her companion - an elderly, neatly dressed man.

“Why don’t you come over? I will make you my masala tea”, she said, smiling.

“Would love to!”

We all trooped in, and then she said,

“Let me introduce you to Mr Arvind here. Arvind, this is Sandhya – I was telling you about her and the computer classes, right?”

Mr Arvind nodded.

Sharada aunty turned to me with a coy smile.

“I must thank you, dear! You taught me to use the computer, and it opened up a whole new world for me. I met Arvind online, and I could not be happier! We are getting married next month!”

She looked at him beaming, and he put his arm around her, smiling down happily.

For the first time, the masala tea paled into insignificance.