Alittle boy was sitting with his grandma when he turned to her and asked, “So how were things during your time? I mean back in 2020s, 2030s. I expect life was most stale, slow and stodgy. But before you begin answering, let’s eat something.”

As the boy spoke, “Let’s eat something,” the voice code was decoded by the robot busy in the kitchen. The robot came rolling fast on its wheels and displayed a touchpad menu list. Ali, scrolled down through it and double clicked ‘Chicken burger and cola’.

The robot spoke, “Thank you sir!” and wheeled away. After a few minutes, the steaming hot burger and cold drink arrived.

“Ok grandma! Now you give the answer.” Hardly had he uttered these words that his cell phone rang. He didn’t budge from his place and a virtual graphic card popped up in front of him. He just pointed to a green button and received the call. “Yes Saad! So what’s up?”

“Man! My homework robot that used to help me a lot has stopped working. Can you please lend me yours?” Ali’s friend Saad spoke.

“Yes, sure!” Ali answered. The call then ended and the virtual graphic card became silent and disappeared.

“Grandma! You know this robot of mine that does all my homework, I am afraid, Saad is envious of it as mine is the latest model and he may try to alter its settings. We can never trust humans.”

Grandma nodded her head at this and excused herself by saying, “Let’s meet after Zuhr prayers.”

But soon afterwards, it was time of Ali’s evening lectures. He moved his fingers and the alphabets ‘LAPTOP’ gleamed blue in air, and the laptop came sliding. It automatically opened. He started his evening biology lesson.

His teacher appeared on the desktop screen and announced, “I greet you all in today’s evening class. Today’s topic is the human cell.”

After about half an hour, the laptop snapped shut by itself and slid back to its place.

When grandma returned after offering her prayer, she asked Ali to go and offer prayers. “Grandma, you know it’s a hectic job -- stand, bow and prostrate, then repeat. Only people of your era can afford such hard work. But please don’t be offended. I promise from tomorrow I shall pray.”

Grandma then sat down and talked about her childhood and youth, “Our times were very beautiful. We were close to God, nature and people.”

Before she could continue further, a robot came and spoke, “Sir it’s time for your evening dress change. Which of these would you like to wear?” The robot then proceeded to show Ali the pictures of his clothes on the built-in screen on its body.

Ali said, “The green one,” and the robot went away to get the green dress. A curtain was created around Ali and the robot dressed him. After it went away, another robot came making creaky noises.

‘It definitely needs a repair,’ Ali reminded himself.

“Sir! What would you like for the evening snack?”

Ali turned towards grandma with a questioning look.

“No thanks, I will eat dinner only,” she replied.

Ali ordered tea with some snacks and the robot brought it within seconds. After Ali had finished his tea, grandma excitedly asked, “Let’s go for an evening walk today. We will talk then.”

Ali refused, “Grandma! Who goes for evening walks nowadays? Just come and look outside window.”

There were planes flying all over. The sky appeared filled with shiny stars, travelling fast here and there. There were no tracks, yet the planes were so orderly aligned that there seemed to be little chance of them having an accident. The ground was all carpeted with signal chips.

After looking outside, grandma nostalgically said, “I miss the greenery!”

Ali pacified her, “Grandma! Is it something to cry over? Let me punch greenery into the room’s atmospheric control system and this room will turn green, all flowery. Just like the gardens of your time.”

“No, leave it! What’s the fun in artificial greenery!” saying this, grandma moved out of room and added, “Let me have a little chat with your mother.”

Ali went to exercise in the ‘exercise room’, where a robot was already present. It pulled Ali’s arms, made him do push-ups, swayed his body, moved his legs up and down, and put pressure over his different parts to exercise his body.

Grandma went to look for Ali’s mother but couldn’t find her. She cut short a robot busy cleaning the floor and asked about her.

Robot answered, “She is with a lady discussing the design of a new robot that will manage complete darkness and light as per schedule in all rooms. This will help every room decide its own night and day timings. Nobody is allowed to meet her now.”

“What is this madness? The good old days are gone,” grandma lamented.

Later when she was sitting with Ali over dinner, grandma told him, “Beta! In our time things were natural. There were no robots, at least in our homes. We all used to do manual work. The use of our body’s power and senses, brain and ideas, human interactions and bonding, made our lifestyles very active and healthy. Our homes were surrounded by natural trees and flowers. Today technology has nearly paralysed all humans.”

Suddenly the lights went off. They were puzzled for a moment then heard a robotic voice announce, “Night time!”

Oh, I guess mum has brought the new robot to artificially create the night. Lights on, please!”

At this the lights came on again and they hurried to finish their dinner before rushing to bed.

Published in Dawn, Young World, January 14th, 2017