Dowry And Education

Once upon a time, there lived two farmers named Raju and Jayant in a village. They were good friends. Coincidentally both were blessed with a daughter same day. Raju was elated with the news while Jayant looked sad. Since then both started to save money for their daughter. Raju saved for education while Jayant saved for dowry.

As the children grew, Raju admitted her daughter to a school and advised the same to Jayant. But Jayant told that he doesn't want to waste his savings on her education as he was saving for her dowry. Time flew and the daughters grew. Jayant started searching for her daughter's match. Because of no education, educated families were not ready to tie the knot while the ones who were ready demanded a huge sum of dowry.

By then Raju's daughter had completed her secondary education and needed at least three lakhs for her graduation. Raju had no savings left so he mortgaged a part of his land and invested the money in his daughter's education. While back in the city, the pressure for accumulating a huge amount of money for the dowry was killing Jayant from inside. Day by day the pressure increased so much that Jayant got a heart attack. Whatever the amount, he had saved over the years was spent on his treatment. On the other side, Raju's daughter completed her graduation and got a decent job. Soon with her savings, she helped her father get back the mortgaged land and married happily with the love of her life without giving a single penny of dowry.

Seeing all this Jayant was ashamed of his decision of not educating his daughter and died soon with the guilt, leaving his daughter illiterate and unmarried.

"Education is the best medicine to swallow up dowry."