CHENNAI

The glum faces around the dining table after breakfast the next morning reflected the mood everyone was in, especially Vael. He was disappointed, dejected and frustrated at not only not knowing what to do but also at being in the dark as to what was happening to his life. It wasn’t fair that his mother had been taken away from him so early in life, but also to have his father be in danger of being taken from him was too much for the teenager to take.

Seethalakshmi looked around the table and got up and went inside a room and came back carrying something heavy covered in a cloth.

“Look what I found when I was cleaning out your mother’s closet”, she said and plonked the object heavily but carefully on the table.

“My mother’s closet?” asked Sarayu.

“Yes, Sarayu. Some of her clothes were still there and I wanted to clear everything up. It’s not right that you still have these at home even after all these years”, she said.

“I didn’t know what to do with them, Paatti”, Sarayu answered glumly.

“I understand, kanna. I am not blaming you. It’s not your job to do it anyway. Nor can your father do it. Actually I should have done it a long time ago. But never got around to doing it till yesterday”, she said as she removed the cloth on the object.

A very old manual typewriter stood on the table.

Muthuramalingam’s face lit up as he saw it.

“Wow! Did she still have this?” he asked lovingly running his hands over it.

Vael and Sarayu stared at it in surprise.

“What is this contraption, Thatha?” Vael asked. “I’ve never seen such a thing in my life”.

“This, my dear grandson, is what is called a ‘typewriter’”, answered Muthuramalingam. “This is what we used to type with before the advent of all your computers and printers”, he explained.

“Did Amma have this in her wardrobe?” asked Sarayu.

“Yes”, answered Seethalakshmi.

“She had taken this from me once when she had come home saying that she would get it repaired and use it. She never got around to it, I guess”, said Muthuramalingam.

Sarayu was silent for a moment as she looked at the typewriter.

“Why were they on that plane, Paatti?” she asked softly.

Seethalakshmi looked at her granddaughter, her heart breaking. Sarayu had grown much taller than when she had seen her last year. She had been a quiet child, tending a little on the short stout side. After the disappearance of her mother, she had become even quieter till three years ago. Then something seemed to change and she had begun to open up and be more outgoing. Hitting puberty gave her a tremendous growth spurt that had increased her height and slimmed her down. Her round face had elongated a little and the curly hair she used to have as a child straightened out a little until it became a mild wave that she wore in a short high ponytail. She had literally brought herself up, managing everything on her own, right from mild illnesses to her day-to-day life. And that kind of growing up had given her an air of confidence and courage, a mentality that shone through when things got rough.

“You know your Chiththi[1] Athira moved to Australia for her college studies, right? So it was quite early on in life that your mother Amara and she had begun to live apart. Even though they were non-identical twins, they were very close right from birth. So once they finished their education and had gotten jobs, they decided to meet once a year in Malaysia and travel somewhere for two weeks, just the two of them, to spend time together. They chose Malaysia because that was the midway for both of them. Wherever they decided to go, they would meet up there and would get their flights from there. That year they had decided to go to Beijing. And so flight MH370”, explained Seethalakshmi.

The table fell silent, each drowned in their personal painful memories.

“How does this thing work?” asked Vael shaking everyone out of their thoughts.

Muthuramalingam had been tinkering with the typewriter when his wife was talking and now he fiddled with it again.

“I don’t know if the ribbon still has some ink in it. Anyway let’s give it a try. Sarayu, get me a full sheet of paper”, he said.

Sarayu went and got him a sheet of A4 paper that they used for printing.

She and Vael watched fascinated as Muthuramalingam inserted the paper into the typewriter and locked it in its place and made the necessary adjustments. Some of the mechanics were not working but he did his best to keep the paper in the machine long enough to just try to see if it was working. Once he was satisfied that he had done all that could be done, he pressed on a few keys and typed a few words. Sarayu and Vael got up and stood beside him, one on each side, eager to see what would appear on the paper. The ribbon on the typewriter had long since dried out and nothing appeared on the paper except the pressure impressions of the keys hitting the paper with force. Muthuramalingam stopped typing and took out the ribbon cartridge from the typewriter. He then pulled on the ribbon and rolled it so that the dried out part rolled over to let the ribbon that had been inside come to the surface. He made some more adjustments and then inserted the ribbon cartridge back in the typewriter. He once again made the needed adjustments and then started typing again. Letters appeared faintly at first and as the ribbon started getting a little more flexible, letters got printed on the paper quite clearly.

Vael and Sarayu clapped spontaneously.

“Yayyyyy!” Sarayu yelled as she looked at the words now appearing clearly on the paper.

“Wow! Thatha, you are so good at this…” said Vael watching his grandfather’s fingers flying over the keys. The clackety clack of the machine was a sound completely unfamiliar to them and yet they found it strangely soothing.

“Typing is like cycling, Vael. Once you learn it you won’t ever forget it”, he said as he spooled the paper out of the machine and handed it over to him. Sarayu got over to him and they both looked at it eagerly.

As she looked at the typeface on the paper, some vague thought poked its head in her brain. She sensed that and let her eyes stare sightlessly at the paper, keeping her mind blank. And then it hit her. She hurriedly took her phone and went to her saved documents and looked at the images of the provenance papers she had scanned from the file. One of the oldest documents was a bill of purchase made from a handicraft shop right there in Chennai dated 15 March 1964. She left the dining room and went to her room to follow up on the thread of thought that had inveigled its way into her brain. She pulled up her laptop and did some searching on the internet. She had already googled the name and address of the shop that was given on the bill the very first day she had seen it. Google told her that no such shop existed. When she did an address search that too had come up blank. She had expected nothing less than that. It would have been a surprise only if the search had turned up something positive. Nothing else could be expected after the passage of so many decades.  But now when she entered her search terms, she seemed to find what she was looking for. She then picked up her phone and called a number that she had looked up on Google and seemed surprised when someone answered. She asked what she wanted to ask and fixed up an appointment to come over in person. She then went to the printer and printed out the bill of purchase and went out to the dining hall again.

“How would you like to get this typewriter repaired, Thatha?” she asked her grandfather.

“Repaired?” asked her grandfather surprised. “Is it even possible nowadays? Does anyone even know what a typewriter is anymore?” he asked.

“You’ll be surprised at how many service centres and typing centres there are nowadays, Thatha. Why, I even found a repair shop for this machine! I called them and they asked us to bring it over anytime today. Since we have nothing to do today, why don’t we take it over?” she asked.

Vael looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

Muthuramalingam looked at his granddaughter to see if she was serious.

“I’m serious, Thatha. Get ready. We’ll start in a few minutes”, she hastened him.

Muthuramalingam looked at his wife Seethalakshmi as if to ask her what he should do. Seethalakshmi nodded at him, as if to say indulge the child. And so he got up to freshen up and get ready.

“What are you doing, Sarayu?” asked Vael in a confused whisper.

“I’m following a hunch. I’ll tell you when I get back”, said Sarayu packing up the typewriter.

“Can’t I come with you?” asked Vael.

“No, Anna. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb. I’ll tell you everything when we get back”, she said as she handed over the car keys to her grandfather.

[1] Mother’s younger sister