Future

Excerpts from my fiction Future of Future

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I turned around when I heard the Windows starting sound wondering who started my laptop. It was my two and half year old granddaughter Aanya, who knowingly pressed the start button and was waiting for main screen to appear. I decided to wait and watch her next move. She also patiently waited till main page appeared. She spoke aloud ‘A’ and pressed the ‘A’ key, then called out B and pressed ‘B’ key. She glanced at the screen, there was no change, she realized something more needs to be done that she was not aware of. She looked at me and gestured to express that something needs to be done. I realized that perhaps she wants me to open a new word document, which I did willingly, pressed caps lock and then she happily started striking the keys from A to O, that she had learnt and from 1 to 9 as she did not know how to type 10 even though she knows the figure 10. I waited for a while till her attention got diverted to something else and she left the room.

I sat with my laptop staring at the screen that blanked out and took me to the future. I saw myself in a classroom to deliver my lecture. I noticed a talented generation, extremely smart generation occupying seats to listen my lecture. There were no note books, no pens or pencils but there was a small smartphone like gadget with each one of them. I refrained from showing my ignorance about that gadget, thought it might be a new generation mobile phone or similar. I wondered in absence of notebooks where and how these students will be writing. I glanced at the class and started my session, I kept talking, and the students were listening and moving their fingers over the gadget they held. In between I wanted to explain a point on the board. To my surprise there was no board or markers or chalks. I asked for the class representative to check the possibility to have a board and markers. I noticed a great surprise in his eyes. ‘You mean to say that you want to write’? He almost screamed. I said ‘of course yes, I can explain better on the board’.

‘Well Sir’, he said, ‘we have boards or writing material only in museums, not in college’.

I wondered at his reply. ‘You mean to say you don’t write’ I quipped.

‘We analyze, understand and just memorize what you say’ he explained. ‘This is the only thing we need for all our activities’. He showed me the smartphone like gadget to me.

‘We don’t write, rather we don’t know how to write’. I was startled at his reply. How come a management student can’t write? I was amazed. He guessed my expression and predicament.

He said, ‘Sir there is no need to write, we can manage without writing’.

I thought for a while and then realized, yes, he was right. There no reason why he or anyone from his generation should write. All that one need is recognition of alphabets and numbers. Once these are identified then there is a keypad on mobile or laptop or a virtual key board to type. Where is the need to write? One communicates by texting, emails, voice chats, video conferences and many more ways including telekinetic. Then what’s the need to learn writing. Handwriting is a matter of history and so are the writing equipments. To confirm my thoughts, I asked the students if they carry any pens or similar, any paper or notebooks? What is that someone asked me? Then I realized that I was at a wrong place or some drastic changes have taken place. The students were very different. There were no notebooks, no papers, no pens, and no pencils. These articles and for that matter even these words were not in their dictionary. I thought of my younger days and the scolding that I had from my parents and teachers to improve handwriting. The money spent by my father to buy the three line and four line note books, the time spent by mother holding my hand to guide me over the dotted letters to improve the handwriting were part of that civilization that might return only after the complete destruction of this current and future civilizations. 

‘How do you sign?’ that was my next question.

‘What do you mean by sign?’ there was a counter question.

‘Well, how do you establish your identity? How do you authenticate the documents or transactions?’ I tried to explain.

‘Well that’s no problem. Biometrics does that job. In rare cases behaviometric is used’. For no reason I remembered the illiterate farmers who used their left thumb impression to authenticate the moneylender’s exploiting documents.

By now I realized that the glasses worn by the students were capable of getting converted as scanners that would do neuroimaging and inform them my thoughts well in advance. That was mind boggling. There was no further reason to address the group and as my thoughts were already ‘read’ by them. I wondered what kind of sports would be played in such society. Chess would be out of question. Many more forward moves would be known to the players. If at all cricket would be played then both the batsman and bowler would know in advance the kind of ball that would be bowled and what stroke will be played. The fielders would move to position before the ball is bowled. In such cases the one who can swiftly read multiple minds and act instantly would be the winner. The batsman would just signal and make use of telekinetic to move the side screen. Perhaps the commentators would know in advance the next couple of overs. The match fixing and betting will have different dimensions. Scorecards will be digitalized and no one would write the score books. Writing will get extinct.

I came back to present when I heard the windows closing sound. I abandoned my plan to buy notebooks and pencils for Aanya, decided to divest from investments in paper industries, companies manufacturing pens, pencils and similar products.  The future was different, beyond imagination. Highly knowledgeable persons would be semi-illiterate as they would only read but not write. The future was frightening.