Today, for tomorrow

The year is 2050. World population is ten billion. It is unbearably hot. The populace is uneducated, unskilled, un-nurtured, and self the rule of the day. Once industrialised, the world today is untidy, unclean, un-organised. Snow-capped mountains of the past are truly The Mountains Of The Past. Sea levels have risen by metres. Jobs and facilities have ceased to exist. Agriculture is perished for fresh water levels have subsided. Strictly rationed drinking water and food items are now a memory. It hasn’t rained for years. Drinking water and food as wages are now faded past. Skin and blood diseases are rampant as liquid in systems is deficient. A ten year old is now bald and wrinkled, like a sixty year old of the past. There are no physicians as literature and culture are deceased. Walking is the only mode of transportation for world economies have crumbled. Sleeping under the sky is ubiquitous as there are no shelters. Obtaining by hook or by crook to survive is the order of the day. Human flesh as food and blood as water is now a practised necessity. Even roots are considered edible - and promptly attract killing for. Colder regions are a few and are deserted as there are no clothes to wear. There are no birds, wild or domestic animals as there is no water or food for them. The institution of religion, firm and sustained for centuries, is now obsolete. Defunct for ages, Hollywood, Bollywood are not even in people’s memories. Seas are more salt than water, hence the fish are dead. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is negligible, therefore, oxygen levels have diminished.

Scientists had warned that overpopulation had begun to tilt the planet from its axis. But the populace was too busy in selfish idiosyncrasies and ignored warnings.

The future is strictly now: this moment - not the next, and it is too late to remedy it. People are dying of starvation and disease by the millions a day. And those who will somehow survive their own doing, will be left to start it all over again. We humans failed in protecting our planet we beautified ourselves. Self-interest failed us to sacrifice our todays toward preserving our tomorrows.

George Thakur