SHORT STORY

It is year 2050. Planting is everyone’s job here. There are no software jobs. It is old-fashioned to work at a software company. In fact, there is only one company in India; it is based out of Bombay, Mumbai. The government is trying to shut that one too. Everyone nowadays studies till Class X, and then take up classes like physical education, meditating and so on. I am still in VII. I can’t wait to complete 10th and start getting into physical education.

My teachers say survival of the fittest is the rule of life nowadays. People are becoming fitness freaks. My mother is old, yet she carries water cans to 2^nd floor. She is very strong. I meditate in my free time. I don’t go out to play with my friends because they play so violently. Last time I went out to play, they pushed me, and I flew and fell at the end of the street. They are quite strong. After that incident, I never went out; not even to the premises of their houses.

I have a dream that in future I would get a job at a nursery. Everyone loves peace, except for a few of my friends. Salaar and Rocky Bhai became peaceful and now they are fighting with words for the most beautiful garden in the world. So, you can tell there is a sea change in 2050. ISRO, NASA, Roscosmos are trying to make moon green and habitable. The environment is really clean these days, with always fresh air outside. Earth has transformed into a blue and green planet. The holes in the ozone have completely been healed. My brother’s dream job is to become a botanist. No one should pluck plants. If you do so, the plant officers will arrest you and put you in jail filled with putrid garbage. There you should keep on recycling plastic from 2010s. My mother said a revolution had taken place in 2020 which I would learn about in Class IX. I wonder what world was like before 2020.

by

Siri Chandana Gattineni

Class VII

Written in February 2024