Ahamkaara

In the billowing green paddy fields, my daughter was jumping with joy. I climbed up a coconut tree to pluck tender coconuts for her. She was eagerly waiting with her mother. When I got down, she pounced upon me. My wife was laughing. I saw her face, there was contentment and joy. Right then, it started raining. I took the sickle lying on the ground and carried my daughter on my shoulder held my wife’s beautiful hand…. 

‘I am a better than average looking guy. I have a B.Sc degree in agriculture. My mother has worked her fingers to bones to bring me up after my father’s death. Our land holdings are neither too great nor too meager. 

They are enough to lead a comfortable life. We may not have a lot of liquid cash flowing in all the time, but we grow our own food, we get milk products in the purest form. We own a beautiful ancestral home with all modern facilities. We lay emphasis on human values and we have a loving warm heart. What more does a girl need?’ A trundling bullock cart made me realize that I was lost in thoughts.

Mother: Son, you work really hard.

Me: Learnt that from you mother.  

Mother: The marriage broker had come today.

Me: He said the same thing? Nowadays girls don’t want to make a life in villages…

Mother: (with a gloomy face) I had been to an orphanage today as well, to look for a bride.

Me: (My eyes lightened up because I felt girls in orphanages would not have  experienced relationships like us. They may value emotions of people like us.) And?

Mother: Girls there say that they want don’t want to live in villages. They want to get drenched in the colors of city life. They want to marry a software engineer. It seems some rich people from the city, who want house-wives, come to orphanages and pick them.

Me: (frustrated) I don’t understand these girls. They want to sit and eat what we grow here. At times, they even throw the food. We break our bones in growing it. All village girls want to go to city and all city girls want to go out of the country.

Mother: (identifying with my emotions) They don’t understand, though there is hardship, there is contentment. We know how much mortal effort goes behind every morsel. But don’t worry Son. It’s not that all girls are shallow. There will be someone who will love to live here with a man such as you.

Me: (resigning myself to hope) Hopefully.