The short story “Upgrade” by Manjula Padmanabhan was published for the first time in 2020 by Future Fiction within the anthology “Avatar. Contemporary Indian Science Fiction”.
Sameera bought her grandmother, Mrs Ganapathy, a robot servant that cooks, cleans, and washes her clothes, all of which the elderly woman can no longer do on her own because it’s hard for her to get out of her wheelchair. Mrs Ganapathy would like a human servant and her daughters tried to send several women but none of them lived up to her demands. The beginning is difficult with the robot too but after some time Mrs Ganapathy finds the best setup.
“Upgrade” addresses an issue that is becoming increasingly relevant in countries where life expectancy has grown over the past few decades. Mrs Ganapathy is 87 and it’s difficult for her to walk, so she moves in a motorized wheelchair. One consequence is that she needs help with housework. For years she has relied on other people but the situation changed and her granddaughter Sameera brings her a robot servant, a not-so-well-received gift.
Stories of robots used as servants go back decades. Their use to assist the elderly or people who aren’t entirely self-sufficient for some reason has also been explored over the years. A recent case is the short story “Tongtong’s Summer” by Xia Jia. Manjula Padmanabhan has a rather light-hearted approach by focusing on how to deal with the changes brought to Mrs Ganapathy’s life by her loss of self-sufficiency without dramatizing the woman’s health problem.
In common with Xia Jia’s short story, “Upgrade” has a positive message regarding the possible uses of new technologies. All too often, risks and negative aspects of possible technological developments are proposed in this type of work, not considering the possible advantages. Instead, Manjula Padmanabhan shows how Mrs Ganapathy can compensate for her physical frailty by exploiting new technologies. That’s why I believe this short story is worth reading, hoping it will be an inspiration in assisting people who are not self-sufficient. The anthology “Avatar. Contemporary Indian Science Fiction” is available on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
