What do you deserve?

This is a story from India during the colonial days. Most of the villagers of the village worked as peasants for the village landlord and got a very small share of the crops and a token money in return for the hard work they put all day in the field.

One year the village witnessed one of the severest droughts ever. The crop failed and the villagers did not get anything in return from the landlord. Most of the villagers fled to the cities.

One of the villagers was particularly in a very bad state. His wife was suffering from malaria and in the absence of food or money he was desperate.

One day he was sitting under the village tree and was thinking desperately about ways to get some money somehow so that he can take his wife and his children to the town, where he knew that somehow he would get some work.

He then saw his cow wandering nearby munching the dried up patches of grass and bushes.

He suddenly had a thought to sell his cow. "Surely someone would like to buy her", he thought.

The next day, early morning he started for the market. There, he stood under a tree and explained his plight to anyone who came and requested them to buy his cow. Nobody seemed to be the least interested.

The day wore by. The sun relentlessly shown on the barren landscape.

With sweat drenched dirty clothes and in the poor state of health he was in, he was looking a picture of the misery.

As evening was approaching, he was losing all hope he had started with.

Then a merchant passed him. He looked at the peasant and with a sudden drive of compassion decided to help him sell the cow.

He asked a few questions and then, in a loud voice full of enthusiasm, he announced to the passers by, "Ladies and gentlemen, never let go an opportunity like this. This cow here, gives 2 bucketfuls of milk everyday, morning and evening. Do not be mistaken by her health. It is just because she has recently given birth to a young calf.

This animal is of such an exceptional breed that last year she had won a prize during the agricultural exhibition of the neighboring village. My friend here, has come to an urgent situation and is willing to part with her for a price that seems to me ridiculous for such a prize animal. Who amongst you realize that an opportunity like this does not come everyday?"

Meanwhile, a small crowd gathered around them all willing to buy the animal. They all wanted to know the price. The merchant asked the peasant, "Well my friend, what is the price you expect? We have several buyers here".

The peasant stood up and with head held high, declared with pride and arrogance, "This animal is mine. She is too good to be sold. I shall keep her."

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This story has several morals. The first that comes to my mind is that we do not appreciate sufficiently what we have. Health, children, girl friend or boy friend etc, we take them all for granted without rejoicing each day for our luck. Sometimes it is necessary to have the look of others in order to become conscious of the value of what we have. We do not take the pain to explain the advantages of our proposal and often our remuneration is less because we do not make this effort towards the proposal. If you have others morals, let me know your conclusions, Christian. This reminds me of an architect just passed out from a famous institute, with exceptional knowledge of computers, who applied for a post. The owner was ready to hire him but did not know what salary to offer. So the owner offered him the salary generally given to fresh architects with little site experience and almost no knowledge of computer applications in architecture. He also offered, "You work for a week and once I have seen your work, I shall pay you what you deserve." The architect replied "At this price, your offer does not interest me!!!"

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"Depression and self-pity seldom attracts anybody. Be enthusiastic and the whole world will look up to you. You can win only if you love what you have."
-Amit Kumar
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