i think it's clear to everyone that laluchacha has a really tough problem. here's what i think:
laluchacha fought, even against his best friend balraj, to get to .. the promised land. so much so that on the day he left, balraj gave him money, but wouldn't even say goodbye or look at laluchacha.
i think laluchacha must've thought to himself: when i make it big, i will come back and i'll give everything that i have to my dearest friend. because i have time!
imagine his shock, when he finally does come back -- after years of working and not even calling his friend once! -- he finds that time has run out!
the friend is dead, and he is left holding a huge huge burden of debt to his friend. it's not just the money, it's a pure stark emotional debt.
i think indians have this strange attitude to debt - if they don't pay it back, they are losers (or some such thing).
so laluchacha's head has this big burden. he starts with what he thinks is a small repayment: make good his promise of marrying prem to balraj's daughter. or the closest approximation.
and he thinks he has been fair: he has asked prem! and prem has always said yes. even after he met and wanted to propose to heer, prem has always said yes to his father. so there's a bit of prem-cause in this as well.
it's just that just now, laluchacha is working so hard on repaying the debt - he must've thought that the repayment was going to happen really soon - that he seems to be totally ignorant of the cost of that debt.
maybe this is why farmers in india kill themselves when they take on too much debt? their choice is that they must give up everything - house, farm, dog, children, wife - to repay the debt? this might have been a good reasoning if it was an old style farmer in india who had taken debt from a money lender. (seen the movie "mother india"? what a terrific movie!)
problem is that it is new-age lalu juneja, who ought to know better. maybe we should send him back to canada where he can get a perspective and then get him back to india if he still wishes to live in the "mitti of apna desh".
CID
