2030: Sienna Tales – The Diary Speaks

Sienna finds out about her parents, their relationship and life before she was born. She also finds out the roots of her healing patterns. How does virtual reality affect the cognitive diseases which are a side effect of climate change and pollution. Also economic realities and the constant struggle of the human race as it continues across the landscape of the future.  

episode 1  |  episode 2  |  episode 3  | episode 4 |  episode 5

It was 10:00 AM by the time Shiela tried for the first time to wake Sienna up. She made the walls more transparent. The room lit up with a gentle glow and slowly brightened, in a minute or so. A trick she had mastered over her last year with Sienna. And sure enough, her eyes twitched and she put up her hand to cover them. “What time is it Shiela?” She groaned.

“Dadu’s discharge has been ordered. He should be home in 40 minutes or so.”

“Uh oh!” As she remembered slowly she wasn’t wearing her night dress like she usually did. An old sweatshirt of her dads. A fact Shiela had chosen not to comment on. Sienna mentally thanked the manufacturer of the home assistant for that bit of sensitive programming.

The night flashed by on the canvas of her mind. She covered her eyes and groaned.

“You don’t have a headache Sienna. And you don’t have a hangover. Should I dim the wall?”

“Yes, please do. What did Surekha make?”

“She has prepared for an aloo parantha and yoghurt. Do you want to have that or should I just ask her to give you porridge?”

“Yes. Tell her to make some for me before I leave. And ask her to get ready, we’re going to Dadus.”

“I suggest you rush into the shower, while it cooks.”

Sienna quickly had some breakfast and rushed out with Surekha in tow. They rode into the estate compound at the same time as Dadu’s car and he waved to her, grinning!

Sienna grinned back. Being back home felt good. But… Immediately she felt the stupor of the night wash away from her mind by a wave of foreboding. She put it on the shelf to come back to later. Surekha was with her, that meant Dadu would ask her to stay over. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she liked her new life. She had moved out to start a new one and she did. Choosing to even forgo taking Ramu, their voice assistant who already knew her, with her. It was an option that Dadu gave her but she refused. Too much history. She wanted to do it all over again. Write a new story with her life. She got herself a new assistant, and they were starting to be friends. Shiela was next gen, she could also do fashion alterations and perform no-invasive early medical tests to determine whether she needed to go to the doctor. She could 3D print from blue prints and give fashion advice. Train Surekha to do her braids, when she wanted them. Surekha was of course honor bound to her by her mom. She could not stay but she left an angel in her place. It was not even a question that Surekha would go with her. It was because of her that Sienna chose to stay at the building where she was. There were livable quarters behind their tower inside the protective cover for non robotic house help. An unheard of thing, in these days of house help robots.

Sienna was also eager to get her hands on her Dad’s diary. She wanted to understand why a man, the center of whose existence she was, would leave her behind and disappear. Even when he was deep in his madness, he left his cottage to go for walks with her. And only when she was old enough to get ready & go to school herself, did he stop getting up to help transport her there. It happened around the time she turned 9. Now that she looked back.

It was those silent walks, that grated her soul. The silence was heavy with thousands of things left unsaid. If she knew it was some of their last time together, she’d live it all over again. She’d just talk and talk and tell him of all her dreams. Of her ideals and her misgivings. Of her gratitude, that he was around. She missed her mom desperately and clung to him more because of her absence. But she kept silent because she knew he was under medication. That it was difficult for him to talk coherently. Just held his hand and softly hummed once in a while. His hand tightened around her fingers after a while when she did. And she would stop and glance at him. His eyes were always wet, like he’d been in the sun too long. She was barely 10 and she didn’t realize what that meant. She just thought her dad was very sad.

Her mental reverie was broken by as the car stopped behind Dadu’s and the doors opened. Surekha needed help to get out so she slid out of her seat and went around to help her alight. Dadu came around and greeted her as she touched his feet. He blessed her and told her he missed her aloo ke paranthe. She immediately rushed off to the kitchen, saying that she’ll go make some for him. Dadu laughed.

“Let her deal with your badi mumma. She’s getting bajre ki khasta rotis made!”

Sienna linked her hands with Dadu and walked in. He headed straight for his study. With a gesture from him the door opened, he went inside and got out the diary. It took a full of 30 seconds but felt like an eternity that she stood outside this door. Even when she was little, he’d shoo her out when he wanted to smoke. Or talk business, and she stood at this very spot, trying to hear what was going on inside. She’d try for some time and then wander of into the house to find other things to do.

Sienna was lost in her reverie as he walked out with a bundle tied with a thread. Her dad also had a digital diary that he gave her, but this one was all analog. Pages and pages of meticulously hand written accounts of his travels and his work. She gingerly took it into her hands.

“Go into the study, although I’ve preserved these pages, but you should be inside when you handle this. Even here the air is too toxic for ancient paper like this.”

She silently walked into the study and shut the door behind her. After a while badi mummy called from outside for breakfast, but she did not respond. She found accounts of the little girl, the god’s child he met on his journey. Her name was Anna. Abhishek Sirkar, the son of the Sirkar family scion and forward thinker, had fallen in love with a little girl with severe autism.

Although he never named the disease. He found the meaning of joy in her eyes, the freedom of doves in her frank unadulterated laughter. He also found that she did better when she spent time with him painting. He let her play around with his colors, but her motor skills were very patchy so she dropped the paint a lot. Her parents realized that after spending time with him, she relaxed and was able to accomplish much more than she was earlier. They thought it was his love for her that did it. Sienna felt herself bristle with envy. That her dad could love some other child except her.

Anna grew more and more attached to him. So much so that she would throw wild tantrums when he was not there. He had to go back again and again, but he also found solace in her simple love. Anna’s mother realized that she grew more patient and her fits grew less frequent when he was around. They would return with a vengeance when he was not there.

So he would travel there often, sitting in the lawn and painting with her around while she played with some colors. She chose subtle shades like pink, sky blue and mint. He let her paint over some old canvases. As her motor skills improved, she’d paint wild patterns. Each more elaborate than the other. He spoke with her parents every night after she went to sleep. She was getting better and was very proud of her work. Normally she had voice tremors and stutters as well but when she was painting, she sang. In the most beautiful, untainted voice that he had ever heard. Her parents were also very proud of her success but wanted to find a way to handle her without him. After all, how long could he stay?

Meanwhile he met Sienna’s mom, Namitha, in a cafe in Milan. They grew closer and fell in love over the next year or so. She came to visit him often while he was at Anna’s place. Around this time Anna’s brother was born. He was also diagnosed with the same disorder. A birth defect which was prevalent as the environment got more and more toxic, Anna assumed, as the case was today. The parents were devastated and completely focussed on Abel, the new baby. Anna grew attached to Namitha as well. It was Namitha who realized that her patterns were directly related to her symptoms. She labelled each canvas with the symptom that it helped with.

“So it was mom and not dad who labelled them.And Anna and not dad who made them” She read further…

Namitha also realized that it was no longer Abhishek or her that Anna was attached to. It was the canvasses and painting. When he went back to India, as he had to once in a while, she stayed with her and let her paint. Soon their garage in suburban Rome was full of canvasses and Anna improved considerably. One time when Abhishek returned from his trip to India, he brought with him news of Indian Marijuana extract effecting her symptoms, especially social interactions. He had brought some with him, smuggled into his suitcase. It wasn’t allowed to cross borders with the extract. Since it was illegal in India at that time.

The effect of the extract on Anna was nothing short of miraculous. She was now nearly normal in her grades and she went to school regularly. Made friends and looked forward to it. Hardly keeping away now that she could interact and learn a bit more normally. Abhishek started to prepare her for his departure. But it was Namitha that he couldn’t let go of. They decided to get married. The whole family came for the wedding and then travelled up to a village in the hills called Malana, to get the extract from there.

The diary ended Anna’s interaction with Abhishek around that time. He was settling in with his new wife in the outhouse at the farm. He did not work so he couldn’t afford his own house. He thought they could be happy there. After all, at the farm they hardly needed anything. Food, water and nature’s abundance of fruits were available aplenty. The vegetable farms grew much more than they could consume, and it was distributed amongst the poor. The energy was free, as it was generated on the farm. They even supplied to the main grid in return for a tax rebate of the same magnitude.

But this reliance on the family for anything else, including clothes, canvasses and colors, rankled her. Namitha could not live with that. With taking money from Abhijit every time they needed anything. They started fighting. A lot. At least 10 pages worth. She skimmed over them. Amongst multiple fights, Anna found an account of a beautiful afternoon they spent together while he painted Namitha. Sienna still had that painting. It was done in various shades of brown. Earth tones that ranged from light ephemeral beige to burnt Sienna. Burnt Sienna was Abhishek’s favorite color. He had named her after it. Sienna, the color of bark, of dark wood and of bright mineral rich mud. Sienna was a color that lended itself to so much and blended with so many to form interesting color pairs. He pointed out in the diary.

The account of painting ranged from erotic to poetic. His love for Namitha was clearly apparent as she read on. The painting was also called ‘Sienna’. She had often wondered why, because it was a painting of her mother. A sensual portrait of the woman clad in a sheath that blended her in with the forest background. Vines & leaves covered her body. A toe peeked through, painted green. The only other color on the canvas. It spoke visually.

The next entry was ecstatic, mom was pregnant. With her! Sienna realized that she was conceived that very afternoon. And Abhishek had never told her about it. Only presented the painting to her in the middle of his madness.

After she was born, the diary tapered off. Often just used for rants against his life. How he could not get out of his family’s shadow until he earned enough money. How he showed in multiple galleries both on and off the cloud, but he hardly sold anything. How Namitha was growing harder and harder as time went by. Constantly irritated and unable to take care of Sienna.

Until, one day, on the 12th of May, year unknown, it said. “She’s gone. She even left the little one. I’m sorry…So sorry. But Sienna is mine, she’s here, for me take care of. My well Anna. She will return one day…”

Sienna felt her heart burst. Her eyes were wet from the moment she opened the book but now she was crying loudly. The same tears she cried whenever she missed Namitha. She was missing both of them terribly at this moment. She lay down on the sofa and clutched a cushion to her chest. As if it would suddenly come alive and become Namitha or at least Abhishek. And she cried. Badi mummy knocked at the door but she didn’t open. As the sky darkened behind her in the window, she drifted off to sleep.

It was her rumbling stomach that woke her up. Ramu was chuckling in his old fashioned robotic voice. He’d never been upgraded. In fact he lived only at the estate, served the family now for 8 years, learnt about them and only them and the estate over time. He had been patched recently by Pratish so he now had a personality. He was from the old times, when personal voice assistants could in very rare cases reside on premises instead of the cloud for very very high security. Her dadu had gotten it done, and was so proud of it that he had never gotten him upgraded. Any breach of his personality could be a breach of their close family and business secrets. He could not even be replaced because learning about the family would surely set off many of the inbuilt alarms that modern voice assistants had. But he knew each family member. Their daily rhythms, their routines and their bodies, even their guests and their personalities and eccentricities. He could not do many of the things that many newer versions automatically could. Except that he had cognitively learnt about the family over time. Who gets up when, who needs food, who needs music, who needs medicines at what times. Because of invisible hand, the family functioned smoothly, went to work, kids did their homework etc etc. All the other voice assistants, although much newer versions that each family member had separately, were tethered to him as children and had to listen to him. Although they had access to the cloud which he did not.

He was chuckling, “Hi Sienna, you’ve only had breakfast, and its 9:00 PM. That’s your stomach telling you to wake up. Dadu has asked for you so many times. I’ve told him multiple times that you’re sleeping soundly. But now he’s getting worried. Please get up and eat something. Surekha has made mutton for Dadu today and he’s on the table, waiting. Only you are missing. Come out quickly.”

She knew Dadu liked everyone on the table, all 19 of them, or however many were in the house, else he’d get angry. He’s always insisted on the family eating together even if they don’t stay together or even talk throughout the day. They would amicably have dinner. There would be no arguments on the table, only news shared from their days.

She got up quickly and joined them. She ate heartily and even had some kheer which badi mumma had made for her. Yummy and reminiscent of her growing years.

“So, what did you find out about your Dad Sienna?”

“Well, I found out that he was not autistic. His color preferences said so. Burnt Sienna, the color that he named me after, was his favorite color. It is completely out of the range of colors that the autism spectrum responds to.”

Dadu sighed, as if a big weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “And..what else? I couldn’t bear to read the diary since it was all about his art. I had skimmed through it.”

“I found the painting I had been named after.”

“Ah, the nude of Namitha!”

“Its not a nude..” She felt a pang for her dad and mom. She wanted to protect the memory of that relationship. To hide it from his prying know it all eyes “I’m taking the diary. For help in my work.”

“Are you going back today? Stay over one night with Dadu, won’t you? Plus I won’t let you take it out of the room for very long.”

Sienna’s heart sank. She hadn’t read all of it yet. She didn’t know the reason for Abhishek’s madness. Although she could take a guess. The pressures of taking care of her alone, without the means to earn, could have tipped him over. But she wanted to know for sure.

“I’ll digitize it.” She said curtly and got up. “I’m done.”

“Didi, we want to go to Attitude tonight. ‘Barb Wire’ is playing. Can you get us in?” ‘Barb Wire’ was a band that was named after a popular turn of the century movie.

Sienna sighed. “If I can digitize the diary fast enough….” Purposefully walking to the study. The door slid open for her and shut fast behind her.

By the time they had eaten their dinner, she was ready to go. She borrowed some earrings and make-up from Ranjana, her cousin and hopped on Pratish’s bike.

“Let Dadu worry, I’m not staying tonight.” The tone of his voice when he spoke of her mom had pissed her off. How can he talk so derisively about a woman who was decent in her heart. And her mother.

She let the boys into the discotheque but she didn’t want to stay so she asked Pratish to drop her home. She was eager to read on..

As soon as she got home, she fed the diary to her holo projector. The system already had a voice print of her dad. She liked to talk to him sometimes, even though she knew it was fake. It comforted her. She asked it to read the diary aloud.

Abhishek had gotten deeper and deeper into despair as time went by and Namitha did not come back. He didn’t think it was such a big deal about the money. He would eventually be able to earn. But as time went by and no takers for any of his paintings came forward, he started to get angry. One day Manesh, his elder brother came to him with a proposition. Sirkar Inc. would buy all his paintings for their offices. They wanted to invest in art. But somehow that made Abhishek even angrier. This was just the kind of thing that Namitha was angry about. Taking from his family.

At this time, dadu also tried to get some treatment for him. Counseling did not help. CASPR had just released their insurance. Everyone in the family got insured after some genetic treatment or the other. Manesh chachu had hair again, badi mummy grew new teeth. He asked them for a fix for his angst. The treatment he received was created for burn out syndrome. The kind stressed people get, He had some of the same symptoms. Depression and mania alternated with him. He went from frantically painting to not even getting out of bed. As the treatment had an effect, it also had side effects. He found that he was losing the ability to paint the way he liked. The quality of his work fell, he had lost the edge. He immediately tried to stop the effects of the treatment but the damage was done. It had already worked on his system and rewritten his genetic make up. The diary ended with slashes and single words. Namitha was a cry that was repeated many times.

But Namitha did not hear. She had disappeared. Gone back to Italy, some said. Some said she’d gone to find her parents, whom she had left when she was 18. She was a serial escapist and had escaped from a life that was dependent on the Sarkar family. That was that. She had left Surekha and abhishek to take care of Sienna. She left because she wanted to come back when she herself was able and get her. But she never was.

The diary ended…

Sienna’s heart bled for the second time that day.

episode 1  |  episode 2  |  episode 3  | episode 4  |  episode 5

———————————————-

Thank you Anindo Ghosh for your mentorship & editing. Anindo is an ace writer who’s working extensively in the Bollywood underground to mentor scriptwriters on writing for the web. He is also a futurist who believes in technology and the role it will play in socio-economic status and attitudes of the coming generations.