What Hidden Histories Lurked in My First Computer’s Old Hard Drive?

Write about your first computer.

My first computer, a 1998 HCL Beastmaster, was rescued from a school lab auction and rebuilt during the monsoon with salvaged parts. Named “Kunjikka,” it taught me patience through its quirks, slow boot times, and unpredictable behaviour. It wasn’t just a machine—it carried stories from its past owner and became part of my journey into technology.

“My First Computer Lived Through Monsoons (And Taught Me Patience in 56kbps)”

“First computers in Kerala aren’t devices. They’re family members.”

“I like to think machines have souls, or at least ghosts.”

I didn’t find my first computer in a sleek Bangalore tech park or a Chennai showroom. I found it sweating under a tarp at Kochi’s Broadway Market, between a stack of betel leaves and a parrot astrologer shouting everyone’s future for ₹10.  

It was 2003. My uncle arrived home on his spluttering Bajaj Chetak, cradling a yellowed CPU like it was a temple offering. “It’s a Pentium!” he announced as if that explained the moss growing on its vents. The machine—a 1998 HCL Beastmaster, according to its peeling sticker—had been rescued from a school lab auction. It smelled of mildew and ambition.  

Monsoon rains attacked that summer. Humidity fused the keyboard’s keys into a sticky “idiyappam” of letters. Our power cuts lasted longer than Hindi soap operas. Yet, my uncle insisted this was my “summer project.” 

We rebuilt the machine like Ayurvedic surgeons. The monitor (a bulbous Sony Trinitron) came from Vishnu Sir next door, who upgraded to LCD after his son declared the old one. The mouse, missing its ball, was replaced with a stolen marble from my brother’s “pallankuzhi” board. For the internet, we bribed the local BSNL guy with “Kattan chai” to prioritize our line—though “broadband” meant tying the cable to a coconut tree to prevent squirrels from chewing it.  

First computers in Kerala aren’t devices. They’re family members.  

I named it “Kunjikka”—“little king” in Malayalam—because it demanded royal treatment. It refused to boot unless I sang “Mangalampattu” to calm its capacitors. The CD drive spat out my ‘Shaktimaan’game disc but devoured a pirated MP3 compilation, digesting it forever. Yet, in its tantrums, I saw my resistance mirrored. Why did I care if it booted? Because the village librarian smirked when I asked for “HTML books”? Because my tech-savvy friend in Dubai sent a ‘How to Conquer Computers’tape that I’d hidden under my mattress?  

Then, the monsoon revelation. While recovering files, I found remnants of its past life: a half-deleted spreadsheet titled “SSLC Exam Marks 1999,” a folder of “Mehndi designs.jpg”, and—most mysteriously—a Tamil love letter typed in Comic Sans. “Kunjikka” had belonged to a teacher in Coimbatore. A romantic? A spreadsheet wizard? Suddenly, the machine wasn’t a machine. It was a “Katha” with multiple authors.  

I began creating. Not sensible things, but Geocities pages glowing with neon text: “WELCOME TO ANCY’S WORLD.” I painted pixel Kolams in MS Paint, saving each iteration to floppy disks labelled like pickles (Mango_1, Mango_2, Mango_FINAL_FINAL).

Friends mocked “Kunjikka’s”10-minute boot time and the table fan duct-taped to its overheating motherboard. But I’d learned its rhythms. Technology here isn’t about speed—it’s about ‘jugaad’. You coax. You improvise. You out-stubborn the stubborn.  

Last year, at a Thiruvananthapuram tech conference, a developer laughed when I called floppies “the original cloud storage.” But clouds here burst open every June. Floppies survived termites.  

Today, I code apps that track monsoon patterns, but I still unplug my laptop during thunderstorms—not because of voltage, but because “Kunjikka” once survived a lightning strike by sacrificing its sound card. I like to think machines have souls, or at least ghosts.  

“Kunjikka”retired in 2007, and it’s hard to drive sighing like a retiring “Kathakali” actor. I repurposed its CPU as a stand for my ‘nilavilakku’, the brass lamp glowing where circuits once hummed.  

Author’s Note: Still have that Tamil love letter. Still can’t read it.

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