Behind the Wall - A short story

My father, Mr Prem Kumar Chandilal is one of the renowned men of Jadiba Nagar, who is a clerk in Chandramani Hospital. He is one of the few men who go to the other side every day and brings backstories of the mainland. Every evening, my house is filled with enthusiastic kids eager to listen to his tales.

When I was a kid, there was no other side. The whole city was one Ahemdabad. No mainland, no side land. No other side! No wall!

20 years ago, in 2020, a U.S. president came to visit Gujrat to see its development and growth so as to be able to provide more funds for evolution on the basis of current progress. The wall was built back then to hide underdeveloped areas commonly known as slums. Jadiba Nagar was one of the areas to fall behind the wall.

He tells me that the city is different from how I saw it last, which was 2019. It has a bullet train now, along with many skyscrapers standing tall saluting the sky. It has various flyovers, bridges, tunnels and bio bridges wrapping the city like Anacondas and pythons. It now has cars that can drive one anywhere they like, on its own. It’s called ATMOS. There have been several killings due to the enraged AI in the cars, a few times. But, it is deemed harmless, in the name of progress. It has nightlife, where drinks are served with khakhras and khandavis. It is actually quite famous for its nightlife now. It has robots as house helps and AI security systems and hospitals that can fix any form of diseases.

While Jadiba Nagar has remained pretty much the same as it was 20 years back. It’s like its stuck in a specific time zone, and can’t hop out of it. Little lanes with hardly any space for even two bikes to pass simultaneously. Houses made of half brick and half other non-decomposable things like flex and plastics and polythenes. Open drains, naked children, women still hiding their face under their Ghagras, cooking meals and being the housekeeper maintaining the remaining shatters, water scarcity and community toilets. Same old little, ragged, dirty Jadiba Nagar. The only difference is, that water scarcity has gone worst and water is rationed to this side from the mainland every day. Well, on a few days when the mainland has used up its water, Jadiba Nagar suffers, but that kind of crisis has never happened for more than 3 days. The city is humble and provides Jadiba Nagar with its water and resources that are left out after having been consumed by the bourgeoisie and proletariats of the city.

One family gets 1 bucket of water every day for their needs. Does not matter, what the number of people is in that family. The community toilet always has water - Dirty brown water, but it’s clean compared to the water other slums are getting and does not have chemicals or oxides mixed in it. No one charges anything for that water, except time. People wait in queues for long hours to bathe, brush or get extra water for their homes. Children are mostly put to the task of getting extra water. Why? Because survival is more important than education.

The thing is, the city has changed with time. The main area has progressed due to high capitalism and the availability of ample aristocrats, while the area on this side of the wall, has had a hard blow. It has fallen back by several decades and is having a hard time following up. The conditions of the slums have worsened as the conditions of the mainland have gotten better. The nearest hospital, to Jadiba Nagar is Chandramani, which is beyond the wall. For anyone of Jadiba Nagar who does not have a regular pass to the mainland, the hospital which is hardly a kilometre away still takes around 8 hours to reach. This is because each resident behind the wall gets thoroughly checked each time they want to access the main city. This is for security and medical reasons. As if building a wall wasn’t enough to make us feel less human.

Today, on 5th Mach, 2040, seven kids sat in my father’s self-acclaimed living room, which was a dingy little corner made out of polyethenes and cartons. The living room of 50, Jadiiba Nagar, was important as everyday little kids with big hopes of a better life came and sat down there, to have khakhras and listen to tales of the other side. As my father entered with snacks he started narrating his tale for the day. “Today I saw..”, the kids chuckled as he continued.

“Today, I saw a brand new machine in the hospital which would be incorporated in all hospitals soon. It is a tiny device that is placed on each bed and on the patient’s clothes. It looks like a 20-year-old phone battery icon. Its purpose is to hold a person’s consciousness like an afterimage for a few minutes so that they can say their final words to the loved ones.”

To children, it was all amazing, they just heard this much and got all enthusiastic, Satendra, a 7-year-old, boy with hazel eyes chuckled and said, I would ask my parents to distribute jelly waffles to all my friends when I die. Of course, he had not had them ever in his life. He had seen a video of it as a child, and that was his dream food. Another girl, Tara who was the youngest, with the most enthusiasm and energy said that I would tell Amma to get me my favourite doll. Little kids indulged in conversations for hours and didn’t listen to my father further (like every day). They went back to their homes with excitement. My father came back to me, in my room, where I was placed on the Cleanest wall right behind the living room, with flowers around me and sobbed, asking me what my last words would have been if I had not accidentally died back when the wall came in.