2050

Year 2050

Everywhere, the city is illuminated and the roads are air conditioned. Everyone is leading busy lives and there is no time to stand and stare!

Yes, we are very much in Chennai, India.

Ram has just got a call from his wife that groceries need to be brought home. He parks his car in the super store’s parking lot which has all the items spread across 10 floors. Ram first goes and stands for the elevator which takes him to the fourth floor and he stands in a queue for rice! People are grabbing the rice bags and Ram doesn’t want to be left out. He is now 11^th in the line. Ram imagines how his Dad used to buy groceries for home and how things have changed now. He quickly grabs 2 bags (5 kgs each) and when he plans to take the third bag, the store assistant tells him that only 2 are allowed since the demand is very high!

Ram then chooses the other things like dal, cornflakes, oats, etc and hands over the bag to the store assistant. Everything was restricted and so he gets only one bag each. He then moves to second floor to get the ready to eat items like pizzas, dosas, etc where there are no restrictions to choose the quantity. He then moves to chips section and grabs a big bag. He then takes in readily cut vegetables and then comes the turn of ice cream, cool drinks and snacks. Ram suddenly remembers that he has forgotten to take water! He rushes to sixth floor to see that a long queue is present already! He manages to take 2 cans of water and comes back to ground floor to check if he missed anything else. He then takes in milk and curd and then now to bakery section. He buys bread and some cakes and checks his total bill. He gives in the card to pay the bill for 50k! Ram is used to spending such an amount every month since prices have gone up due to high demand.

Nobody does agriculture these days and so everything is imported from other nations. Our farmers have changed their profession and their lands were sold to build new houses.

Ram thinks how foolish it was to sell out the lands of the farmers and how all of us have committed the mistake of forgetting agriculture. His son’s school project also shows grains being imported from other nations and there can be no scope to show either the lands in reality or in pictures from his text book!

He imagines how it was in 2010 when he was 10 years old. He used to go with his dad in the busy market streets to get the monthly groceries. His dad used to get 20-25 kgs of rice every month and drinking water used to come home in cans for Rs. 25/- per can.

Enough Ram, its already late! Please get up and don’t test my patience. In half an hour, your school bus would be here! Get up!

Ram woke up with a start only to realize that it had been just a dream and his mom was waking him up for the past 40 minutes! Thank God, he said and decided to choose agriculture as his profession once he grows big.