Last year, Kandivli resident Samruddhi Bhat bought a tablet costing Rs 25,000 for her six-year-old son, Shiv, as a birthday gift. It was a purchase that she wasn’t particularly in favour of. “As a parent, I’m not gadget-friendly. We don’t have a laptop at home; just a desktop. My daughter, Reva, has an iPad, but we would always regulate the hours she spent with it,” she says. Her son, who is currently in Class I, would be allowed to play on the phone only on Saturdays for a stipulated time. Bhat has been compelled to embrace technology after the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated remote education. The investment hasn’t stopped at a tablet, though. She has also had to secure a robust WiFi connection because the phone data is inadequate. “I know of many parents who’ve also had to buy printers, because every now and then you need to take printouts of worksheets.” Bhat still goes to a nearby shop for printouts, or uses her neighbour’s in an emergency. She’ll make do with this arrangement until she no longer can. 

Pari Saathi, 12, and her brother, Arth, 14, study at a boarding school in Coimbatore. They led a relatively gadget-free life until the lockdown necessitated remote learning