One Dollar Note!

"How can I attend the marriage party mom? The following day I have my chemistry paper
" Goutam could hardly cover his annoyance, as he spoke to his mother.
"Come, come, my sonny boy, I know you can manage it. You know, it’s your uncle’s only daughter’s wedding. It is our family responsibility to see that everything goes well. He will be extremely upset if we miss it."
"Ma, it is not about managing and passing the paper but its about the attitude people show towards us. Why did he fix the marriage without thinking about our exam dates? I doubt that he cares for us!"
"Shut up, I will not listen a word against my elder brother." She walked out of the room ending the conversation abruptly and leaving a bitter feeling in Goutam.

This is the same uncle who had refused to give him the old Joint Entrance study material of his cousin to him. "Your sister will be requiring these materials for reference and they are very costly" was his reply then.
It is not even a year when she is getting married to be a housewife all her life! How can Ma forget the humiliation? She had cried the entire night!

Goutam had no choice but to accompany his mother to his maternal uncles’s place a week before the wedding. Hemlata wanted to help her sister-in-law, Bela.
Hemlata took care of the household chores in her able hands while Bela focused herself in discussions related to menu for the wedding, selecting the parlour the bride and she needs to visit, the sarees and jewellery they need to wear.
The days were like a punishment for Goutam. Neither could he watch the cricket matches nor would he get a peaceful location to prepare for the exams. To top it all, his uncle used to bore him to death with his long lectures about his professional achievements.
"Goutam , you need to be ruthless, shameless and aggressive in life. These are the reasons a simple guy like me from a village now has a Maruti car and my own house. I am the only person in our entire village who has the guts to marry off his daughter to an NRI. My Son-in-law is a doctor in the US, can you beat that?”He used to go on and on.
Finally it was the‘D’ day; the celebrations made Goutam also forget all the bitterness and await the arrival of the groom with childlike curiosity. He had never seen an NRI!
He came in a car with a silk kurta complementing his fair complexion. Goutam stood in awe, as he walked towards them. Everyone along with Goutam’s mother from the bride’s side stood to block his way to the wedding hall. They wanted him to part with some amount to enter the wedding hall.
Amidst all the hoopla, the groom spoke clearly without any foreign accent, “Well I can give you
$100,if you could answer 2 questions .Nothing but pure General Knowledge”
G.K! Goutam was thrilled as other’s made faces. “He is a show pot”, he over-heard an old aunt talking to another distant relative.
“ What is the current exchange rate of $ to Rupee?” “Rs.47.3,” Goutam answered before others could register the question.

The groom looked at him and as if, he was challenged for a duel, asked with a twinge of arrogance in his voice, “How many countries use $ as their currency?”, “15”. Goutam’s mother was so proud of him.
The groom was impressed and held few dollars towards Goutam. His fingers had just brushed with the strongest currency in the world when his uncle snatched it from him. “ Later, later., we are getting late for the wedding”.
Goutam was disgusted, but he waited for the wedding to get over. The day he was about to return, he approached his uncle.
“May I keep "One dollar" as memento?”,
“What!!!, are you crazy? I have spent so much on the marriage, I can’t throw away money on silly things that you guys do.”

Goutam felt a hot wave of heat passing in his mind even years after that day as he settled with his uncle’s bereavement card in his cosy chair which earned him in as the Chairman of a fortune five hundred company.