THE UTOPIAN WORLD

Discontent, Disrespect, Discomfort,

In the city and on the shore

Just adding up layers,

Encapsulating the Inner core.

Not paying heed,

Opportunities banging on the door,

Lost the ability to distinguish,

What is Sweet and What is Sour

To check and analyze,

Let’s take an inner detour.

That’s where you find your mind,

Distinguishing Who is not and Who is yours.

-Tejas Joshi

That’s how we are right now, more or less analogous to the above verses. The world is growing intellectually at an unfathomable rate. Every single person has access to a plethora of information just one click away and technical, personal, social, spiritual advancements are on rising.  The people are more savant, they are aware of good to bad. Still, we struggle to surmount the ideal world. The Fundamental values that we are taught in Value Education in our primary standards are nowhere when we grow up and become adults. Everywhere is a rat-race and we can witness each and every person going after material things. At some point of time in future, we will face the need to create a world that will be a place to live for.  An Ideal World to live in. And that Imaginative and Fiction world is the Utopian World.

The idea of the utopian world is obvious as we look for a perfect world. For that, we may need some examples of the ancient Utopian World. Many rulers and Dynasties have set an example of Utopian World, like the Arya Dynasty, the Yadava Dynasty, Alexander the Great, Porus, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, etc. Each of these rulers has paved the path to different flavors of the Utopian World. Many authors and poets have tried their imaginations on the ideal World. The Utopia word is coined from the Greek word, from the book of Sir Thomas Moore, Utopia, which is about a fictional island society in Atlantic on the coast of South America. The meaning of Utopia is a combination of “not-place” thereby symbolizing a non-existent society where everything will be just perfect.

But, as the debate continues, we can never have as such a world where all the desires will be fulfilled. As our society is not homogenous, no two minds can be analogous to each other and hence, a true Utopia cannot be achieved. If we say, in the next 5 to 10 years, it will be strenuous and issuing such statement would sound balderdash now and we would have no idea how the people and society will acclimatize to this change with the new governing body and a plethora of new rules and regulations. The change, though we are making a constant effort, should be smooth and gradual, keeping into consideration, that the lives are going to experience a change in the surrounding atmosphere. The transition should not feel footle, but rather a meaningful one, and we need to win the faith of people that the transition and subtle changes are for their own good.

Proceeding further, there are types of Utopian World: -

1.       Ecological Utopia: - With the rise of the industrial sector, the utmost importance of ecological balance was acknowledged by the thinkers as it was detrimental to nature. Their visionary of after 10 years was clear enough. The need for greenery was underlined. They described the societies that would live their life in equilibrium with nature, without contamination and destruction of the resources.

2.      Economical Utopia: -The Economical Utopia rose with the quick expansion of 19^th Century embarked with Poverty, Commercialism and Capitalism and workplace environment where employees are free to do the job of their own choice, driven by the concept of “Greater Good”.

3.       Political Utopia: - Political utopias describe the environment that the government provides in which the population of the entire world (which was expanded in literary works to myriad galaxies and universe) lives in perfect harmony.

4.       Scientific Utopia: - Scientific Utopia emphasizes on the Constructive use of technology wherein the destructive experiments and technologies will have no place. It can be of immense help to humanity where incredible living standards - long life, artificial enchantments of brain functions, the absence of death, illness, suffering, poverty, and the ability to form human life in artificial ways (an adaptation of the human body for life in different environments).

   

      There is a project going on to provide efficacy on the Utopian World named Ecotopia 2121 in which 100 cities are included. After years of fieldwork, studio work, literature review, travel, research, debate, theorizing, writing, and artistic exploration -- a compendium of 100 illustrated stories have been assembled together to discuss how different cities from around the world can transform into Green Utopias by the year 2121AD. The 100 selected cities include famous places like London, New York, and Paris but also some faraway cities like Dawei City, Ordos, and Greenville. Also included are mysterious cities like Timbuktu, Xanadu, and Shangri La -- which may sound a fantasy but they are real cities.

      It is active feedback to many technological fantasies with extravagance and excess into our lives now. These fantasies bind us to an unsustainable and unlivable future. If Ecotopia 2121 is a collection of fantasies, at least they would do less harm to the planet we live on.
   
    With this, I resign for now. For all the readers, engage in reading, writing, expressing, and sharing knowledge. The more you give, the more you get. A lamp lights another lamp and that is how the world is enlightened. In case, we are meeting for the first time, Hii, This is Tejas Joshi.