Fifteen Minutes

Rakesh comes home before dawn again, wrapped in the kind of tiredness that makes even the gate sound respectful.

Priya is half-awake when she hears the click, the hand pump splash, the steel tumbler against the tap. The house learns quiet the way it always does on his night-shift mornings—voices lowered, footsteps softened, the whole courtyard holding its breath.

She gets up anyway.

The floor is cold enough to feel personal. She pulls her shawl tighter and pads into the kitchen, lighting the stove with one match and a practiced wrist-flick. The kettle begins its small, impatient song. Sunita appears at the doorway, hair loosely tied, eyes already open in the way mothers’ eyes are.

“He’s back?” Sunita asks, as if she doesn’t already know.

Priya nods. “Yes.”

Sunita doesn’t say anything else. She just reaches for the tea leaves, the grated ginger, the sugar tin, and makes the morning into something warm.

Rakesh sits on the charpai with his back against the wall, rubbing his hands together. His nails look a little dark with dust that never fully leaves the warehouse, no matter how many times he scrubs. When Priya hands him the tumbler, his fingers close around it like he’s borrowing heat.

“It’s very cold,” he says, and the sentence contains both complaint and acceptance.

“It’s winter,” Priya says, because that is the only answer that feels useful.

Rakesh drinks, eyes closing for a second. Then, as if remembering something important through the fog of sleep, he opens one eye.

“You’ll go to that shop today?” he asks quietly.

Priya knows what he means. Sharma Ji’s shop. The computer. The two bumps on F and J that have been sitting in her mind like a small promise.

“Just for fifteen minutes,” she says.

Rakesh makes a small approving sound and leans back. “Learn,” he says again, the word steady. “But don’t let that man shout at you.”

Priya smiles. “He shouts even when the printer coughs.”

“That’s his nature,” Rakesh says, and closes his eyes like a door.

By the time the sky turns from black to grey, the house has returned to its usual layers. Arjun emerges, hair sticking up as if it’s protesting school already.

“Why do you people wake up so early?” he mutters.

“No one asked you to,” Sunita says, handing him a plate.

Arjun chews slowly, then looks at Priya’s bag propped near the door. “You’re going again?”

“Not again,” Priya says. “Different work.”

Arjun’s eyebrows lift. “What different work is there in Sharma Ji’s shop? Printing, photocopy, fighting with the internet.”

Priya hesitates. Saying it out loud still feels like putting a fragile object on the table.

“Typing,” she says.

Arjun stares at her for half a second, then grins. “Okay, madam computer.”

“Don’t start,” Priya says, but her mouth is already betraying her with a smile.

The morning passes in practical pieces. Sunita asks her to knead dough. Priya fills water buckets because the hand pump is cooperative today, and you take help where you get it. She sweeps the courtyard, chasing neem leaves that return as if they are paid employees.

Outside, the lane is wrapped in fog again. It’s the kind that makes distant voices feel close and close things feel far. Somewhere a horn bleats for too long and then gives up. The day does not climb into warmth; it stays hovering in that early-January range where your fingers complain and your nose turns red without permission.

Priya waits for the right time.

If she goes too early, Sharma Ji will be busy with schoolchildren printing assignments and men shouting into phones. If she goes too late, he will be hungry and more dramatic. She watches the rhythm like she watches the stove flame: not staring, just knowing.

Around noon, Sunita waves her away with a cloth in her hand. “Go now,” she says. “And if you stop for chai, come back with coriander.”

Priya steps out, her breath turning white for a second before vanishing.

At the bus stand, Chai Uncle is doing brisk business—winter does that, makes everyone want something hot to hold.

He sees Priya and squints. “Paper work again?”

“No paper today,” Priya says.

Chai Uncle looks offended on behalf of his gossip. “Then what?”

“Typing practice,” Priya says, and the words sound absurdly modern in her own mouth.

Chai Uncle leans in as if she has said foreign trip. “Typing?”

Priya nods.

He considers it, then says, “Good. At least your hands will do something that doesn’t make them cold.”

She takes the tumbler, warms her fingers around it for three sips, and makes herself walk away before comfort becomes a chair.

Sharma Ji’s shutter is half-open, which is a good sign. Half-open means: not closed, not crowded.

Inside, the fan makes its distant-train sound. The printer sits like a grumpy animal, quiet only because no one is touching it. Sharma Ji is at the counter, glasses pushed up on his head as if they are temporary.

He looks up. “Aaj kya?”—what today?—and the tone suggests he is already tired of whatever it is.

Priya holds up her hands like proof. “Typing. You said… fifteen minutes.”

Sharma Ji exhales as if accepting a burden placed by destiny. “Sit. Don’t press hard. These keys are older than you.”

Priya sits on the plastic stool, the seat cold through her salwar. The keyboard is pulled toward her.

F. J.

Her index fingers find the bumps immediately, like her body has been practising in her sleep.

“Now,” Sharma Ji says, tapping the desk with a pen, “eyes on screen. Don’t look down. If you look down, your fingers will lie.”

Priya tries.

On the screen, a simple practice page is open. Rows of letters. No words yet. Just the building blocks of words.

A S D F.

J K L ;

Her fingers hover uncertainly, like they’re waiting for permission.

“Chal,” Sharma Ji says—come on—and points. “Left hand: A-S-D-F. Right hand: J-K-L-semicolon.”

Priya presses A.

The letter appears on the screen.

She presses S. Then D. Then F.

It’s almost ridiculous how satisfying it is.

But the moment she tries to go faster, her fingers betray her. She types A-S-F and then forgets where D lives. She looks down for half a second—just a glance—and immediately feels caught, even though Sharma Ji isn’t watching her face.

“See?” Sharma Ji says, as if he can sense dishonesty in the room. “Don’t look. Feel.”

Priya swallows and tries again.

Her fingertips begin to understand the map. Not fully, not confidently, but enough to stumble in the right direction.

She makes mistakes. The screen fills with wrong letters. The urge to panic rises—the same old worry, dressed in new clothes.

“Backspace,” Sharma Ji says, pressing a key for her once. “Erase. Life also needs this button.”

Priya laughs, surprised by it.

She continues. A-S-D-F, J-K-L-;

The letters are small and boring, and yet her focus turns sharp. For fifteen minutes, her mind is not refreshing a portal, not counting money, not rearranging worries. It is just here: finger, key, sound.

Halfway through, the bell above the door jingles. A man comes in asking for a recharge. Sharma Ji handles it with the speed of someone who would like the world to stop needing him.

Priya keeps typing.

She forgets to be self-conscious.

At the end of fifteen minutes, Sharma Ji taps the desk again. “Bas,” he says—enough. “Your brain will start smoking.”

Priya flexes her fingers. They feel warmer than they did outside.

Sharma Ji slides a small printout toward her—two rows of letters and a simple instruction: Home Row Practice. He has underlined F and J as if they are sacred.

“Take,” he says. “At home, you can practice on table. Tap like this. Don’t waste electricity coming here for nothing.”

Priya takes the paper carefully, surprised by the kindness hiding inside his irritation.

On the way back, she buys coriander that smells like something green and alive. She stands for a second at a vegetable cart, watching the seller’s hands move fast—counting, weighing, tying a knot. Everyone has some skill that looks like magic if you watch closely.

At home, Arjun sees the paper in her hand and immediately makes a face. “What is this? Secret code?”

“Not secret,” Priya says. “Just practice.”

Arjun takes the paper, reads it, then starts tapping on the table dramatically. “A-S-D-F… J-K-L…” He says the letters like he’s reciting a spell. “Okay, I also know typing now. Where is my job?”

“Go do homework,” Priya says.

Arjun leans closer. “Did Sharma Ji shout?”

“A little,” Priya admits.

Arjun nods, satisfied. “Then it’s real training.”

Sunita listens while rolling rotis, her hands never stopping. When Priya tells her about the bumps on F and J again, Sunita smiles like she is storing the detail away.

“Achha hai,” Sunita says—it’s good. “Learn slowly. Like we learn everything.”

In the afternoon, the electricity goes off for twenty minutes, as if the inverter wants to remind them who is in charge. The fan stops mid-complaint. The house becomes still.

Priya sits on the cot near the window where light is better and puts the practice sheet on her lap. She taps the keys on her own thigh, pretending the cloth is a keyboard.

A-S-D-F.

J-K-L-;

Her fingers look a little silly, moving in air. But her mind feels calm in the doing.

When the power comes back, the fan starts again with a reluctant whirr. Somewhere outside, a loudspeaker carries a snatch of devotional singing from far away—blurred by distance and fog.

In the evening, Priya opens her squared notebook and writes:

• Typing practice: Day 1 (15 minutes)

She draws a small box and ticks it immediately.

The tick is tiny. It does not solve money, or college confirmations, or the way winter makes everything harder. But it sits on the page like proof that she has begun something she can continue.

Before sleeping, she checks her phone once—just once—for the portal status. Still “under review.”

She doesn’t feel the same tightness.

She places the typing sheet inside her plastic folder, behind the stamped receipt, behind the acknowledgement pages. It doesn’t belong there, exactly, but she wants it safe. She wants her new skill to be treated with the same seriousness as documents.

When she lies down, she finds herself pressing her index fingers lightly against the blanket, feeling for bumps that aren’t there.

Home row.

Fifteen minutes.

Small, steady things.