As a boy, the rich man ventured off to the city and worked his way to riches. He always promised to come back to his village and give back to his community. The village he came from was small and impoverished. Along his travels, he planned and built many establishments to help the village. Soon he decided to return for one major project that would be truly beneficial for the small town of Sisodra.
He decided to build a large factory on the outskirts of the village in order to create job opportunities. The factory would be a state-of-the-art facility, like none that had ever been built before. The main product manufactured there would be textiles in order to create an equal opportunity of employment for both males and females. The factory would be complete in one year and in the meantime the man decided to live in the village for the time being as the factory began development.
The man had no sense self-entitlement. He came from nothing, and sympathy and empathy were both traits he could best be described as having. He also came from nothing, so he never felt as if he was better than anyone. He was one of the richest and most respected men in the land and yet decided to live in the small home he grew up in. Day in and day out people would come to him for help, and his generosity never wavered. He built introduced proper plumbing, more reliable electricity and many other facilities to make the lives of the villagers much easier. Many women would walk miles on end everyday to reach the nearest source of clean. He built a small water treatment plant in order to assuage this problem. Along with these many projects he also spent his days overseeing the factory and nights helping the people of his village.
There also was a young man, about ten years younger than the rich man. He too, came from the same orphanage and was raised by the village. As he grew older, he decided not to venture out, as the rich man had done, and instead came seeking help directly from him but was turned away. He was seeking a monetary investment in his business. He wanted to build a large shopping center near the town and have various vendors rent out the open units. However, the generous man saw no beneficial qualities to the village and saw that it would solely take advantage of the village's resources. He also felt that this would drive the villagers off the path that was so characteristic of Sisodra. Sisodra was a a special place because almost all the businesses there helped the community in some way. The young man would not hear the generous man's explanation and began to despise him. His spite manifested in him a drive to become successful in any way possible.
Both the young man, and rich man came from very similar backgrounds and yet the young man felt less love, and support from his village. He felt as if winning the hearts of his village would lead to his happiness and the main object in his path was the rich man,
The young man left his village and did whatever it took to become as rich as the generous man. He took advantage of many people, and conned people through lying about his intentions. His motivation was his hatred for the generous man, and he dreamed one day of shaming him.
Years passed, and soon the young man came back to his home village to exact his revenge. By this time, the generous man's textile factory was doing quite well, and it provided a significant amount of job opportunities to inhabitants of the village.
The young man's plan was to build a factory. A factory very similar to the generous man's, however with more state-of-the-art technologies. It would be located right next to the generous man's factory. The young man hoped to take all of his employees and run the factory to the ground.
However, the building process was slow and encountered many delays. The young man grew impatient and put his entire savings into speeding up the process. His drive to spite the generous man over being rejected was quite ridiculous but the young man was blinded by rage and hatred.
Soon his factory would be opening and he began recruiting villagers to work in his factory. He talked to many families that were given jobs by the generous man and offered them lavish benefits. However, they could see through the young man's intentions and their loyalty and that of many other families still lay with the generous man for he had done so much for them already. This left the young man with no workers and an empty factory. The young man's plan to bring the generous man's amazing factory to the ground backfired and he was left bankrupt with no money. His factory remains vacant and never saw a plume of smoke exit its chimney.
Author's Note: This story is based off of Duryodhana's plan to make an extravagant camp next to the Pandavas to shame them. Duryodhana's plan, however, backfires when he ends up being saved by the Pandavas which is quite embarrassing for him. In my retelling of this story the generous man is the Pandavas, and the young man is Duryodhana. Similar to Narayan's story, the young man (Duryodhana) builds a factory (his camp) next to the already existing one (the Pandavas camp) in order to ruin the generous man (the Pandavas). However the plan backfires, just like in the epic. I decided to exclude a part where the generous man would save the young man's factory (similar to how the Pandavas save Duryodhana) because when I read the epic I really wished they had not saved them since he was such an evil person. Since this was my version of the story I got to let the young man receive what he rightfully deserved. This was a major reason why I chose this story. In order for me to be able to control the ending in the way that I thought was best fit. I think the Pandavas are much nicer than I would ever be and my track of thinking would be to simply let Duryodhana or in this case, the young man, learn his lesson.
Bibliography :
Narayan, R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata
