GOLDEN JUBILEE IN GOLD

GOLDEN JUBILEE IN GOLD

A billionairess was celebrating her 50th birth anniversary. She was lavishly spending for it. She had invited guests from all over the world to have a luxury time for a full week. The city of her birth was illuminated. Tens of millions were being spent, money flowing down the drain like water.

Now one thing happened. At the dinner table her guests, all of whom were billionaires as well, were served gold grains instead of grains of rice, silver slices instead of slices of bread and all other delicacies of sparkling gems instead of delicacies of food as we know it. The hostess was stunned, angered to explosion and ordered for fresh food. The dishes were taken away and a fresh lot of diamond delicacies and desserts were brought this time. The hostess whose birthday it was, shouted, "Humey khaanaa chaahiye, sonaa nahi." (We want food, not gold.) But in the kitchen only dishes of precious metals and gemstones were there. So, the guests had to go hungry for the night.

Next morning it was the same scene at the breakfast table and the tale followed suit at lunch, tea and dinner again. The guests, hungry and weary, wanted to leave but the hostess persuaded them to stay on at her palace, promising them food at the earliest. But where was food? All the seven star and five star hotels were serving silver salads, gold grains and diamond dishes and desserts. There was no other food available for the rich.

The original plan was to keep the guests, who had been flown in from the four corners of the earth by chartered planes and who were to be dropped home in a like manner, for a full funweek. But now they were desperate to leave but too weak to do so after several days' starvation. In tears they sent out messages everywhere, pleading for food, promising to pay for it in a like quantity of gold grains that were there in their stock in the kitchen but to no avail. No food was available, came back the response from all the major cities. Except for one small village called Annagaon in Annapradesh. Frantically the billionairess' office appealed for food there but they replied that the food could not be transported but could be had only at the village after passing through a test.

The birthday girl, now on the verge of deathday with her damned guests, hungry and weary, arrived in their limousines to Annagaon with boxes full of gem-dishes, which they hoped they could barter with the poor farmers for the bread of life. But, alas, the farmers refused all barter. They would have none of it. What followed was strange. They subjected the billionairess to an intensive test. It went as follows :

Farmer (F) : How can we serve you  madam?

Billionairess (B) : Food.

F : But you want money, gold, jewellery, diamonds, gems, designer clothes, palaces twenty seven storey tall, aircrafts, cricket teams, auctioned players, foreign trips, birthday bashes and what not. You do not want food? We till the ground, we make food from Mother Earth, yet we starve, our children starve. No, no, we want food, not you. What you want, you will get. What you do not want, you will be denied. We will give you gold, 50 gold coins as gift for your 50th birthday. We have collected from the neighbouring 50 villages of our Annapradesh the life savings of our village brethren to buy you this present which we shall now present. Please bring the gift, brothers, for our dear sister here.

B : I beg of you, food.

F : Here we are. Please take this insignificant gift, sister, from your humble sisters and brothers of Annagaon, Annapradesh for all your lifelong services of starving them to debilitation, disease and death. Here, take it.

B : Please. I beg of you. Take everything away from us. Give us something to eat.

F : Brother, bring some gold biscuits for madam and her friends. Arey, ey Babua, lay aa toh inke liye thoraa sonaa.

B : Nahi ! Sonaa nahi, khaanaa.

F : Mataji, ab aayee baat thikane pe. Sonaa nahi, khaanaa. Khabhi bhuliye mat. Arey, ey Phulwaa, lay aa toh thora dahi chawal, lassi aur nariyal paani behnaa ke liye. 

B : Bhaiyaa !

Written in anguish by Sugata Bose