My days

It is the year 2055 , and I am ten-year-old. Last night my grandfather was telling me the story of his times. He told me that he used to leave home at eight in the morning and come back by seven in the evening. Everyday he spent two hours commuting to and fro, on Saturday he helped my grandmother to do the household chores, took my father to football practice, went to buy grocery for the week, and on Sunday he took little easy, watched a movie or went out for a drink with friends, this was also the day to take exercise seriously.

My question was why did you live like that grandpa ?
This is what life offered at that time, you can’t swim against the tide.
Who makes these tides grandpa?
Some handful of people, who for no reason used to be our leaders and policy makers?
Where are they now?
They have become the subject of past.
Don’t we need them now?
No, now everything is data based, algorithms give us the options and for every issue we have a referendum now.
What did you have then?
Democracy without proper infrastructure, something like you have cars , but no roads and traffic lights.

That night I kept getting dreams of traffic jam, people milling around.

Next morning, our Robot Pyarelal was little unwell, its batteries had drained out, my father had forgotten to order for new batteries, it needed rest, we tried getting robot on hire, but the rent was too much. In this situation, my both the parents were nervous, they had planned their day out with their friends and their tickets were booked for a very expensive performance of one artist from Mars. My grandmother pitched in, she assured them that she will be able to carry out all the responsibilities of pyarelal for a day, my parents can go out and have fun.

That day for the first time I saw human working like robot, this was something unbelievable. She was rolling out round chapaties, cut vegetables, cook chicken, carry weight , wash dishes. It intrigued me so much that in the evening I called my friends to come over and see my grandma work.

That night my grandmother told me that when she was young, she used to drive herself, cook every morning all the three meals of the day. She knew how to bake too. She told me that her mother, viz, my great grandmother knew how to stitch, knit and do embroidery.

But why did she need to do it?
Actually, she had learnt all these things but never practiced.
What did she learn then?
Because as a kid her mother, viz, my grandmother didn’t know things will start to produce on mass scale , and women will start taking outdoor jobs.
What jobs!
All kinds of jobs , they liked being everywhere.
Did they get the time to spend with their children.
Not as much as your mother is getting now, or my grandmother got in her times, in fact, I spent less time with your father than my mother did with me.
So, were you ok with this?
No, not at all, I missed my children at work and got impatient with them at home. My depression level kept rising, it made me feel guilty at times. When I look back now, it makes me feel weird, my children are the most important people in my life and I barely spent any time with them. In those days, either I was suppressing my emotions or depression was flaring up.
Then why did you work outside?
For money.
You didn’t have enough?
Now , when I look back, your grandfather ‘s income was enough to take care of our needs?
What were you doing with extra money?
Was buying bags, shoes, clothes, traveling, cosmetics, drinking and all that.
Did it make you happy?
Well, not as much as your mom is, who is working creatively, learning at her pace, taking care of her health…her bag may be just one, and that too little tattered, but she is not carrying the weight of the guilt which my generation carried.
You mean adding to pollution?
Yes, how do you know about all this. Is your robot teacher teaching you all this.
Yes , grandma, my father asked him to instruct me on my home, which is this planet in the first grade.
What do you mean?
He showed me many ten dimensional pictures. He virtually took me from Galapagos to Mount Everest. He got me acquainted with its flora and fauna. He made me understand various biomes, delicate balance of life here. Then he also gave me the tour of times when because of mass production, how consumption increased and life went under terrible stress, humans , animals, elements everything was suffering.
So you must be thinking very low of our generation?
No, he also told me to be sympathetic towards the past, it has taken humans very long time to learn to live in harmony. For a long time they failed to think in totality, and hence, their ego, and greed became the driving forces. It has happened many a times in the past too, only last time scale was bigger than ever before.
He does not say anything good about our times.
He does grandma and I hugged her.
Tell me what was good about us.
Your generation was brave, you knew about the dangers of upcoming technology but your curiosity was greater than fear.
That’s true.
And he says, had your generation not taken those steps, technology would have ceased to grow. Though your forests were burning, genocides were happening, painful wars continued, but the common man , this is a word from your times, now this term is obsolete, we are all equal, whom politicians and billionaires were ignoring rose up to the occasion and stoped using more than what’s needed , recovered the planet with plants, developed alternative fuels and so on. Grandma, your generation was a fighter, and my generation is proud of you.

Next day my parents had a meeting with robot teacher, they were going to instruct him on the next part of my education. My first grade had taken me two years and seven months, in this period I had a basic idea of geography, history, poetry, music, painting and a bit of maths. I was part of the meeting, but didn’t have much to contribute. My mother wanted me to know about various cultures, languages, mythologies, totems, petroglyphs and evolution of various religions. But my father thought it was important for me to learn to read and write at this stage. His emphasis was more on maths and make a trip to Mars. It was time for my robot teacher to assess my aptitude and expose me to tools which will be required to fulfill that calling. They told my teacher to analyze all that what they had discussed in the meeting and come up with comprehensive plan.

I love learning, but this leisure time is also good. Teacher will take seven days to plan everything. These seven days I will spend with my grandparents, listening to their stories, after all we are all part of a single thread and it will help me to understand who I am.

—— Shashi Mahajan