The List in Blue

Sunday arrives without urgency, but it does not arrive empty.

The fog is thinner than yesterday’s—less like a wall, more like a shawl someone keeps trying to slide off their shoulders. The lane shows itself in pieces: the front wheel of a bicycle, the edge of a buffalo’s horn, a boy’s sweater too light for January.

Priya wakes before anyone calls her.

For a moment she stays still, listening.

The house is doing its Sunday breathing: Sunita moving in the kitchen with soft clinks, Arjun turning under his blanket like a disgruntled cat, the distant radio from someone else’s courtyard trying to sing away the cold.

Priya’s phone lies beside her pillow.

No new notification shines on it.

That is both a relief and a small disappointment—like opening the plastic folder and finding everything in order, when you secretly wanted the world to admit you were important enough to send a new paper.

She sits up and reaches for the keyboard.

It has become the first thing her hands ask for.

She plugs the OTG connector into her phone. The familiar message appears:

Physical keyboard connected.

Connected.

She likes that word more each day.

Priya sets the timer for fifteen minutes.

The practice site opens to a new line.

today is sunday

It feels like the phone is stating the obvious, but Priya is grateful anyway. It is good when someone names the day for you.

Her fingers begin.

T-O-D-A-Y.

A small mistake. Backspace.

S-U-N-D-A-Y.

The clicks sound sharper in the quiet room, as if the keys are proud of themselves.

In the courtyard Sunita calls, “Priya, uth gayi? (Are you up?)”

“Haan (yes),” Priya calls back, without looking away from the screen.

Sunita comes to the doorway and sees the keyboard. Her eyes take it in the way she takes in new utensils: with a mixture of approval and the question, Will this make life easier or just add another thing to wash?

“You will have tea?” Sunita asks.

“After fifteen,” Priya says.

Sunita nods. She has started respecting the timer the way she respects a pressure cooker’s whistle: not because she fully understands the mechanism, but because it has consequences.

When the alarm rings, Priya stops immediately.

Her fingers hover, wanting to continue.

But she unplugs the keyboard.

Stopping on time has become its own kind of practice.

She puts the connector back into its little packet and tucks it into the plastic folder again, as if the cable might forget its importance otherwise.

In the kitchen, Sunita pours tea.

Arjun appears, hair sticking up like he has been arguing with sleep.

“Sunday,” he announces, pleased with himself.

Sunita says, “Sunday means you will clean your shelf.”

Arjun’s face collapses as if she has slapped him with a wet cloth.

Priya sips her tea and lets the warmth reach her fingers. On the stove, the kettle makes its stubborn sound, not fully boiling, not fully quiet.

Rakesh is awake too, sitting in the courtyard with his shawl wrapped tight. He looks tired in the soft way that suggests the warehouse is treating days as interchangeable lately—fog or no fog.

“Will you go today?” Priya asks.

“Evening,” he says. “They will call if needed. Sunday means people order more.”

Priya nods. The warehouse has become another weather system in their house: sometimes calm, sometimes urgent, never fully predictable.

Sunita wipes her hands on her dupatta (scarf) and says, “Vegetables are finished. And oil. And Arjun ate all the biscuits.”

Arjun protests automatically. “I ate only some.”

Sunita looks at him.

Arjun corrects himself. “Some means… many.”

Priya laughs. It comes out as a small puff of breath.

Sunita turns to Priya. “Go now. Before fog becomes stubborn again.”

Priya reaches for her notebook, but instead of opening it, she looks at her phone.

A thought comes to her, clean and simple.

She plugs the keyboard back in.

She opens WhatsApp.

Not a chat.

Not Sana.

Not Irfan.

She opens her own notes—the blank message to herself that she has never used, because in her mind lists belong on paper, not inside a phone.

She types:

vegetables: aloo (potatoes), tamatar (tomatoes), hari mirch (green chilies), dhania (coriander)

oil

biscuit (for arjun)

She stares at the blue ticks that don’t appear, because she is messaging herself.

Still, seeing the list sit there, neat and unchanging, makes something in her chest loosen.

It feels like pinning cloth.

Sunita peers over her shoulder.

Priya is suddenly shy, as if she has been caught doing something too modern.

Sunita reads the list, lips moving slightly.

Then she says, almost grudgingly, “Good. If you forget, phone will not forget.”

Priya smiles.

Arjun leans in and says, “Type: chocolate.”

Sunita says his name—“Arjun”—in the tone that contains a whole lecture.

Arjun backs away, defeated.

Priya wraps her scarf high and steps into the lane.

The fog has thinned enough for rooftops to show their edges. A kite string still hangs from someone’s terrace like a leftover thought from the festival.

At the bus stand, Chai Uncle is already there, performing the morning. His radio is crackling with a song that sounds older than the tea stall itself.

He sees Priya and says, “Office madam going?”

Priya rolls her eyes. “Only vegetables.”

Chai Uncle laughs. “Vegetables also have accounts.”

He pours her half a glass of chai without asking. On Sundays he behaves like he is giving charity, even when she pays.

A man on the bench scrolls through his phone and says, “Fog again. Trains delayed.”

Someone else replies, “Every year. December to February, same story.”

Priya listens the way she listens to train talk—half interested, half distant. Trains are always discussed here as if they are a relative who keeps promising to visit.

She drinks her chai, warms her hands on the glass, and walks toward the market lane.

The vegetable seller’s hands are red from cold and water.

Priya buys potatoes and tomatoes, and adds green chilies because Sunita will scold her if she forgets spice in winter.

She asks for coriander.

The seller shakes his head. “Finished. Sunday crowd came early.”

Priya sighs. Coriander is always the first thing to vanish, like it has a shorter patience than other vegetables.

She turns to leave—and then notices a piece of paper taped to the wall beside the pan shop.

It is not a government notice. It is not a wedding card.

It is a hand-written advertisement in thick marker:

COMPUTER OPERATOR REQUIRED

Typing + basic form filling

Contact: …

The last line is partly torn.

Priya stands still.

Her heart does not race.

It simply… leans forward.

A man walking past says, “Arre (hey), move.”

Priya steps aside, pretending she was only reading out of boredom.

But the words stay.

Computer operator.

Typing.

Form filling.

It is like seeing your own private worry written in public.

She takes out her phone and snaps a photo quickly, before she can talk herself out of it.

At home, Sunita is chopping onions.

Priya sets the vegetable bag down and says, “Coriander finished.”

Sunita makes a sound of disappointment and then, because she is Sunita, immediately adjusts the day in her head. “Then we will use dried. Go later evening, maybe it will come.”

Priya hesitates, then shows her the photo.

Sunita squints.

“Computer operator,” Sunita reads slowly.

Priya watches her mother’s face.

Sunita’s eyes are careful. Not excited. Not dismissive.

Just calculating.

“Where?” Sunita asks.

“Market lane,” Priya says. “Paper was torn. Number not full.”

Sunita returns to chopping onions with steady hands. “Then you will ask Sharma Ji.”

Priya feels a small shock of gratitude. Sunita does not say, Why you? She does not say, First do your BA. She does not say, These people cheat.

She simply turns it into a next step.

After lunch, when the sun makes a weak attempt to show itself, Priya goes to Sharma Ji’s shop.

The shutter is up today, fully, as if Sunday has forced the shop to participate.

Inside, two schoolboys are playing with the mouse like it is a toy, and Sharma Ji is scolding them while also taking money.

He sees Priya and points at the keyboard under her arm.

“Home practice going?” he asks.

Priya nods. “Fifteen minutes.”

Sharma Ji grunts approval.

Priya shows him the photo.

Sharma Ji takes the phone, squints, and then snorts.

“Operator required,” he reads. “Everyone requires. Nobody pays.”

Priya’s stomach tightens.

Then he adds, “This is for that small clinic near the canal road. They always need someone to fill insurance form, print reports, make ID copies. They put ad, remove ad, put again.”

Priya tries not to look too eager. “Do they test?”

“Test,” Sharma Ji says, like it is a joke. Then, after a pause, he says more seriously, “They will see if you can type without making spelling nonsense. And if you can sit quietly and not argue with customers.”

Priya thinks of herself arguing.

She almost smiles.

Sharma Ji returns her phone.

“If you want, come tomorrow morning,” he says. “I will make you do one page typing. In English. And one small form. Like practice. Then we see.”

Tomorrow.

A real tomorrow task.

Priya feels something settle inside her, the way a book sits flat when you finally find the right place for it.

As she turns to leave, Sharma Ji calls after her, “And today also—one work. If you have time.”

A customer has handed him a crumpled ration shop list—names and quantities, written in hurried Hindi.

“Type clean,” Sharma Ji says. “No mistake in names.”

Priya sits at the computer.

The Hindi keyboard still confuses her. Her fingers know English patterns now; Hindi requires a different kind of patience.

She takes a breath.

She begins.

The names appear, slowly, on the screen.

The cursor blinks like a small, impatient eye.

Priya refuses to hurry.

When she finishes, Sharma Ji prints it.

He looks at the sheet, checks the spelling with his thumb sliding along the lines, and nods.

He counts money and places it on the counter.

“Seventy,” he says.

Priya takes it, folds it once, and tucks it into her notebook without ceremony.

Outside, the fog has thinned enough that the road looks almost normal.

Back home, Sunita is rolling dough.

Priya says, “Sharma Ji said clinic ad. Tomorrow he will make me practice one page. He will see.”

Sunita’s hands pause for just a second.

Then she says, “Good. Don’t go empty hand. Go with practice.”

Arjun overhears and immediately begins imagining her in an office chair.

“Didi will become madam,” he says, delighted.

Priya throws a small cushion at him. Not hard.

He laughs anyway.

Evening brings the usual winter trick: the sun disappears quickly, and the cold sharpens like someone has tightened a string.

Rakesh puts on his sweater and prepares for the warehouse shift.

Before he leaves, Priya opens WhatsApp and types him the grocery list from earlier.

Not because he will buy vegetables.

But because she wants to prove—to herself more than anyone—that she can take a small piece of the household and hold it clearly.

Rakesh reads the message, then looks at her.

He nods once.

The nod is not a thumbs-up.

But it carries the same weight.

At night, when the house quiets again, Priya plugs in the keyboard.

She sets the timer.

Fifteen minutes.

On the screen, she types the line that has been sitting in her mind all day:

tommorow practice one page

She stops.

Backspace.

She types again, slower.

tomorrow practice one page

She smiles at the corrected word.

Outside, the fog returns softly, as if the world is tucking itself in.

Inside, Priya’s list sits in blue letters on her phone, steady and ordinary.

A small thing, held cleanly.