5 Indian Short Stories Vol.2

The Magician Who Moved A City

The city of Penber was founded in 1900 in America by Charles Penber. He was a rich industrialist who gained riches by investing in oil and factories.

At the age of fifty, Charles decided that he would start his own city. These ambitions grew from the fact that he always admired leadership and administration. Plus he was sick of all the corruption present in each city, so one day he decided he would start his own free of corruption, hunger and poverty.

The city would be unlike any other and would be very advanced with its people living there in complete harmony and joy.

Charles' project was a very ambitious one indeed. People thought he was going crazy as his age progressed and he was heavily criticised by his own family for not quitting his dream. They advised him to live his remaining life in luxury and not to squander his money to start a city that could cause him to go broke and penniless.

Charles didn't listen to any of that and moved on making his dream a reality. He first searched for land and found a queer spot to start a city. It was cheap but very far and isolated from other cities and towns. He purchased land of 1000000 acres and then using all his wealth he cleared a majority of the forest of the land, started construction of houses for families and brought quite a few industries into the area.

Within a year, the houses were ready and rented off at a low rate which drew lots of people. The industries provided employment and money to the families and thus after that, the city progressed.

It had a population of 10,000 and with a large workforce present there it drew in even more industries. Citizens lived happy lives under mayor Charles Penber's guidance. The taxes collected from the people were used mainly for the people.

Schools, hospitals, fountains, parks, printing press etc were some of the things established.

The city was soon popular because of its high happiness ratio and success.

But unfortunately, its progress couldn't last.

After 40 years Charles Penber died and 12 years following that the entire country was left in a huge economic crisis caused partially due to debt from foreign countries and partially due to poor management, corruption, black money and one thing that led to the other.

Soon industries were reduced to a handful in the entire country due to the economic crisis, people were thrown out of jobs and starved.

Taxes were raised to at least pay back the foreign debt in a promised 10 years, but since people had no income what would they pay?

The poor and middle class were the worst affected, while the rich too suffered setbacks and losses they were considerably well-doing.

The worst loss was that the people lost their happiness and lived in an age of deep sadness, depression and uncertainty.

 The city of Penber was in ruins. Gone were the days of joy and contentment. The city buildings became old with their paint cracking off. Giving off a pale dull complexion.

Most of the population left in search of employment elsewhere, thus greatly reducing the population to about 2,000.

People were out of jobs and complained all day. Most of them had learnt farming in their backyard as a way to procure food.

A few markets were still open, but problems were far from over. Children rarely attended schools and colleges.

The roads were very dusty, cracked and uneven and were filled with litter on the side as garbage men were a handful for a whole city and people dutifully littered if a bin was not found.