2124 — A Brave New Country

A timely short story describes an India of the future

by Rajendran Narayanan

“Great days are here! Great days are here!” was the literal translation of the words uttered in Ban-skrit, by a group of young boys dressed in khaki shorts and white shirt as they marched along the staircases of the Freedom Mall. The young boys were training as members of a club called the “National Self Organisation” whose ideal was to preserve the religion and culture of the inhabitants of the United States of Blind-ia (USB or Blind-ia for short) where Ban-skrit was the lingua-franca. The organisation, at some point, had a staunch allegiance to a little, but well known leader called Floda. For some reason, the marching band had only boys chanting and no girls were to be seen. Contrary to what some earlier critics thought, Ban-skrit was not sans script and some scholars link the structure and grammar of this language to a classical language that was once spoken in the south of the Indus river. Some persistent scholars believe that this language has not undergone much changes from the time of its earliest texts recorded several thousands of years ago.

Ban-skrit became the official language of Blind-ia several decades ago. Geographically, Blind-ia was carved out by cutting off the north eastern sections of a larger country that it was part of. The shape of this new country almost resembled a diamond. It is an astounding feat that the same political party has been democratically elected to be at the helm of affairs in this country for over 100 years now. Over the years, numerous political scientists and psephologists had to change their vocation owing to a monolithic political establishment in this country. The youth don’t see any point in learning about alternate political discourses owing to the constancy and stability of a certain ideology for over a century. In fact, all universities in Blind-ia have scrapped political science departments because of lack of financial aid. Anthropologists, save a specific brand of cultural anthropologists, are the next endangered species.

The subject of history in this country has undergone a steady shift over the last century. As I write, history textbooks have 33 chapters with each chapter consisting of a million names that are considered to be crucial historical figures in the creation of the great nation of Blind-ia. Every student is expected to learn the 33 chapters by the end of their university life. There is hardly anybody who knows all the historical names but there is a collective belief that everybody knows about it. During census, any individual can be asked to provide details about any of those historical names from a sample of thousand names, failing which they are considered to lack literacy. The only way out of not being considered illiterate is if they can write long lines of good computer programs. Being able to write good efficient computer programs is an indication of a person’s grasp of Ban-skrit because it is widely believed that Ban-skrit is the most suited among all languages for computer programs.

The Ministry of Morality and Monoculture have a record of all those people who’ve asked this question once. Any person asking this question the second time is deported to the neighbouring north-eastern country by invoking their flagship programme called “Clean Blind-ia Programme”.

For a brief period in the initial phase of the formation of Blind-ia, a large portion of the number line, that mathematicians have traditionally called the rational numbers, were asked to be removed at the behest of State orders. However, it was soon highlighted that such a move could potentially have hazardous consequences for technological progress. The State retracted its position and instead of banning the innocuous rational numbers, decided to depict a large part of the number line, i.e., the rational numbers, in black ink.

While several subjects have been cremated (burying is banned in Blind-ia), technology and management have flourished relentlessly. Economic growth was a key priority for the founding fathers (there were only a handful of mothers) of the country and it ranks as one of the fastest growing countries in the world. The consumption (and hence wastage) of this country has been giving a stiff competition to the superpowers of the world. The State of Blind-ia strongly believed in a trickle down approach to progress and their economic principles is said to have yielded dividends. The visionary early leader of the country’s formation travelled around the world extensively soliciting investment in this new emerging market with a booming upwardly mobile nouveau class. Under the aegis of public private partnership through foreign investments, most forests and mountains were privatised in the early days of the country’s formation. Rapid and large scale privatisation of land rendered a large section of the parent country of Blind-ia to descend below the poverty surface. A treaty was signed to let the north eastern part of the parent country of Blind-ia to separate from the so-called mainland on the condition that the new country of the north-east would accommodate 50% of the people below the poverty surface. The remaining 50% had to be retained in the mainland for construction and labour purposes.

The visionary early leader of the country’s formation travelled around the world extensively soliciting investment in this new emerging market with a booming upwardly mobile nouveau class.

A need for rapid urbanisation had prompted the environment ministry to sanction and clear a host of pending development projects such as construction of dams, highways, and malls. Some international environment organisations cried about deforestation and carbon emissions. However, Blind-ia’s strength in technology came in handy to tackle the problem of excessive carbon emissions. A leading indigenous corporation called “Dependence Industries” had devised small gadgets that was available in every pharmacy and could easily fit into pant pockets. The gadgets are rechargeable and contain oxygen shots. There were big boards with words saying “Oxygen Available” outside every pharmacy. It was mandated by the health ministry that every person had to snuff oxygen shots every four hours to be able to contribute to the GDP of the country. The State was ecstatic that a company nurtured in its own land, Dependence Industries, became the first company in the world to privatise air. Privatising water had become passe now.

Blind-ia is one of the most coveted places in the world for technology, not so much for science though. A crucial breakthrough was achieved in the field of genetic engineering a few decades ago. An awe inspiring massive government programme consisting of doctors and engineers resulted in devising a medicine that every pregnant woman had to consume in the second month of pregnancy. This had a four-fold effect on every child that was born.

First, each child was born with a single long red coloured vermilion based vertical line on the forehead. It was like any other organ in the human body and would grow so long as the child grows and would remain etched on the forehead till death. The second was also a form of a permanent tattoo at birth. Every child was born with the etching of a wing on its right arm. This was, once again, like any other organ on the body and remained in the body till death. The wing symbolises freedom but there is no documented evidence of why the right arm and not the left was chosen for the wing.

About a hundred years ago, just before the formation of the United States of Blind-ia, public display of affection by members of the opposite sex was considered morally inappropriate while such display by members of the same sex was a punishable offence. The State had been in a limbo on how to deal with this growing menace of display of affection by the then youth. A medical and technology program based on strong foundations of faith made it possible for the eradication of the curse of homosexuality. Many saints believed that homosexuality was a curable disease and their clairvoyance had also found a home through this magical pill. The fourth feat outlined below tackled the immorality of public display of affection among heterosexuals.

First, each child was born with a single long red coloured vermilion based vertical line on the forehead. It was like any other organ in the human body and would grow so long as the child grows and would remain etched on the forehead till death.

The fourth and perhaps the most commendable feat was the eradication of colour blindness. This achievement probably encompassed all the other achievements. This was a panacea for all immoral acts. No child was colour blind any more. Except the red vermilion stripe tattooed on the forehead, every child could see everything around them as a special shade of orange. The lens in every new born baby’s eye was altered to see everything with this special tint of orange. Some picky colour obsessed people called it a shade of saffron. Everything in the country, from rice to water to spinach to books could be seen only through the saffron tinted lens. The then prime minister released a stamp to commemorate the occasion of eradicating colour blindness and proudly announced that finally everybody in this country had the same vision. The genetic modification of vision had a side effect on most people; they would seldom question the actions of the State. The few who didn’t have the side effect complained that having monochromatic vision is not equivalent to removing colour blindness. Their complaints, naturally, were not strong enough to merit a response from the State and soon this monochromatic saffron tint became the norm to see everything in Blind-ia.

The idea of the saffron-tinted vision of every person was closely associated with the belief of having a single cultural and moral code of conduct for Blind-ia. The parent country of Blind-ia had a long history of pluralism and multicultural practices. However, the long standing governing party of the carved out paradise called Blind-ia had a slightly different idea of identity. They believed in uniformity, of thoughts, actions and expressions. In fact, the most prominent and sought after ministry was that of Morality and Monoculture. The fact that it contradicted, in a peculiar way, the polytheistic tradition of the majority of the inhabitants didn’t seem to affect the ethical fabric of uniformity espoused by the State. The inhabitants had the freedom to choose their own god (s) from among a well-documented list of gods that was available in every hospital, police station and every State office. This list was almost the same as the 33 million names in the history textbooks. It was not permitted to use upper case G to describe god because that symbolised a solitary god. As a corollary to this dictum on the family of omnipotents, the State had banned the consumption of a meat called b. For the sake of exposition, we shall call the animal as c whose meat is called b.

A primary and revered figure in the discourse of religious and spiritual practices in Blind-ia was a sage who is said to have lived around the late 1800s in its parent country. The sage’s name roughly translates to ‘Intelligent Happiness (IH)’ in English. IH, through his thorough reading of the ancient scriptures, had a recorded comment about the ancestors of modern day Blind-ians that they had to eat b. In addition IH wrote that, according to some ancient rites and rituals in the scriptures, when a sage, a king or a renouncer came to one’s house, it was customary to offer the best b from one’s house.

Legend has it that over a hundred years ago, sometime in early 2000s, a man said to be a follower of God (as opposed to god(s)), was lynched by a mob for storing b in his house. The mob is said to have reacted in anger because c was considered to be a member of the list that was worshipped. A minuscule set of people on the margins have, over several decades, been requesting all the ministers of Morality and Monoculture to resolve this contradiction of rites in ancient scriptures and the lynching by the mob. The Ministry of Morality and Monoculture have a record of all those people who’ve asked this question once. Any person asking this question the second time is deported to the neighbouring north-eastern country by invoking their flagship programme called “Clean Blind-ia Programme”. This was also part of the treaty. The clause number 42 of the treaty read “For every person deported in this manner, the north-eastern country would send a member of the animal species of c to Blind-ia to be worshipped”. The abundance of c in Blind-ia soon after had resulted in the production of the most consumed cola in the world prepared from the urine of c. It is parsimoniously named and branded as just `Cola’ with an upper case c. There is a duopoly comprising of multinational giants in the soft drink market in Blind-ia and one of them won the cola war, patenting it and selling it in bottles and cans. The urine of c is considered sacred by the State and this branding is another testimony of the success of the partnership of the monoculture principles of State and foreign investment in Blind-ia.

All the international organisations have been working overtime trying to understand the mantra behind the success story called Blind-ia. Several case studies have been spawned to study the credence that the majority in the country have repeatedly bestowed on the ruling party. Some believe that it is the monochromatic and monoculture vision while some others believe that it is its economics and some others believe it is a combination of the two that is symbolised through the tattoo of the wing on the right arm of every person. There are several possible directions to analyse the story. The brilliance of the ruling party, however, lies in the fact that it has successfully separated the monoculture aspect from its economic aspects when it comes to dealing with its foreign allies. While b is the most consumed meat among all its key foreign investor countries, Cola, which is not consumed in any of those countries, is the bestselling product in Blind-ia. Some thinkers believe that such contradictions are at the heart of societal progress while some cynics call it hypocrisy. While nothing can be said conclusively, perhaps to keep faith intact in the hinterlands, it is vital to brand it through reasons of profit.