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Monks 'Dilemma
Monks' Dilemma
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the remaining meal is very good manure. There was a well on its side. The entire field was covered with plants of wheat, gram and a number of spices. It was a beautiful green carpet spread all over, pleasant, refreshing and soothing to eyes. Deepak's mind went back in time. It was here he and Vijay sat the whole day, five years ago, and he recapitulated sweet memories of their companionship since their childhood to the end of higher education.
Vijay interrupted his thought process and said, "It was here we met last before departing and drifting in two different directions. You got success in IIT entrance examination but I could not. You were reluctant to go but all here and particularly the members of your oswal community, persuaded rather forced you to join IIT, Bombay. Your father did not have means enough to support your costly studies. Your community helped but with a rider that if your father and mother both renounce and become monks in the order of their sect, it would deposit sufficient amount of money to support you. It is a very repulsive tradition that even monkhood is purchased and is not out of free will of a person. We in this town have been watching this obnoxious tradition. Not only the elders and adults but younger ones of eight to ten years are forced into monkhood and the practice is flourishing because of the financial compulsions. Monkhood is thrust on young and grown up girls only because their poor parents are unable to marry them in the competitive matrimonial market where the rich take away the available boys by their money power. Boys have become a marketable commodity and are almost auctioned to the highest bidder. I wonder why in spite of these glaring facts the heads of the orders of monks and community proclaim that all young or adult boys or girls adopt monkhood
of their own out of their inner urge of renunciation. What do the younger ones at the tender age of eight and ten know about renunciation?"
Deepak, "You know I did not at all agree to succumb to the temptation of the glare of cherished IIT but for the compulsion and pressure all in the town including you and your father put on me in the name of the rare honour the town and its residents will get because of first ever selection of a boy of their town. They valued the pride and honour of the town and its residents more than that of my parents and disregarded my own feelings of intense pain and repentance as I was responsible for the forced monkhood of my parents. The painful memories of the pangs of my suffering because of similarly forced monkhood of my elder sister were fresh in my mind. She could not be married as my parents did not have money to purchase a groom for her. I would not have yielded but the community threatened to excommunicate us on the pretext that it was a question of forgoing the rare honour the community got. I succumbed."
Vijay, "I would have done the same as you have if I could have succeeded in IIT entrance examination. My father was prepared to mortgage or sell the little piece of agricultural land."
Deepak, "On the basis of your rank in this examination you could have got admission in any other engineering college. You sacrificed your career for just a piece of land, where as I was instrumental in forced monkhood on my parents, I could have followed your example. You should have guided me as a good friend. But you also joined town folk and considered the glory for the town more important. How
