I was reading an article on the BBC magazine website on “20 predictions for life 100 years from now.” The article was a fantastic read, and I was exceptionally impressed and intrigued by the topic.
A few elements in the piece really made me think about our future. According to the article, our oceans will be extensively farmed and not just for fish because we’ll need to feed 10 billion people. Since the land mass won’t be adequate to meet demands, we’ll heavily rely on ocean farming for fish.
The article also said that Antarctica will be “open for business.” It is considered that the world’s biggest oil reserve is there.
Then, I came across how marriage will be replaced by annual contracts. This one in particular is amusing; traditional marriage will still be an option at that time, but the BBC article argued that increasing longevity would be the key -- if you marry at 20 and live to well over 100, that is far too long a commitment. People will want marriages that aren’t necessarily forever.
Most of us usually don’t think that far. I know that my grand-children or great grand-children would be living in that time, but we usually don’t really think about what environment they would be living in.
What will happen to the rivers? What will happen to the agricultural land? Will Bangladesh have nuclear weapons? Will there be a water crisis across Bangladesh?
If we’d been thoughtful about them, we’d have been more responsible in bringing about changes in the way we live in, technological advancements, and environment.
Then, I asked myself a few questions concerning Bangladesh. I don’t want to think 100 years ahead; for Bangladesh, 50 would do.
What will happen to the rivers? What will happen to the agricultural land? Are we going to farm fish in the Bay of Bengal? Will there be any playground left in our country? Will Bangladesh have nuclear weapons? Will there be a water crisis across Bangladesh? What would happen to our mother language?
There are many such questions that linger in our mind, in the midst of our busy lives.
We already can see the changes that are taking place around us and in our homes. When I was growing up -- in my teens and during my university days, we didn’t see children closing the door of their rooms and living in their own isolated world. The children, including their parents, are glued to gadgets these days, creating a visible gap in interpersonal communication.
This reminds me of what our Dhaka city was 30 or 40 years ago. Most of the houses were two-storied ones. Then in the 80s, we started building four-storied houses.
Then came the two-flat, six-storied apartment buildings. Currently, we are going beyond even that.
My question is: What would happen to the 10-family building, when we’d require a 50-family structure?
What would be the nature of traffic in this city once we build buildings for 50 families per building, in the same space where only one family used to live in the 70s? We’d build more flyovers, more mono-rails tracks, and more underpasses in the divisional cities.
I hear people would be building underwater cities across the world. I’m not sure whether underwater cities would be feasible in our country, but we’d certainly think of building them.
I think with the waning agricultural land, most of the Bangladeshis would start living in the cities, or our villages would turn into cities. And with it, we may have to say goodbye to grocery shopping.
Whether we like it or not, our refrigerators would seamlessly become integrated with online markets. Our food items would be on its way to our homes, even before we know it. Our hospitals would be so technologically advanced that their ambulance would be on their way, exactly when we fall sick. What an incredible Bangladesh our country can be.
A thousand changes are to happen in the next 50 years as we make progress.
Our mangrove forest might disappear off Bangladesh’s map. We may have to visit the museums to learn about the Sundarbans. Our physical universities might disappear and young people won’t be seeing one another in person anymore; there won’t be any “adda” as we know it. Instead, we will have robots for company.
You may not believe me, but these will happen, and happen very soon, and it may not even take 50 years.
Sometimes, I wonder what people would be like in that world and how would they define life.
Ekram Kabir is a fiction writer.