Beaten!

That was a small village, still practising some of their old habits and customs in a stubborn fashion. For instance, they allowed printing notices only for two occasions in any of their lives - one for their marriage and the other, for the last journey. Their custom was that even these two have to be done by others closer to the person who faced the event and not the person himself.

In such a situation, there lived a rich man whose daughter was at the 'marriable' age and was a local beauty. There were many proposals that came. Finally, after eliminating all but two, which were 'equal' in all respects, the rich man called his daughter. "See dear! Both are good and I cannot rule out one for the other. Both are good looking and have enough wealth. I want you to choose the groom for yourself!". The girl was smart as well. So she thought a bit and summoned both the boys. While her father sat by her side, she told them that she would be choosing one of them, based on what they did in the next 7 days.

Both were confused and were desperate to her, so they thought for a while. In fact, they had even gone to the length of staking their lives for it. Each of them had a 'great' idea and were bent upon executing it. On the seventh day, the rich man and his girl were surprised to see two notices stuck on the outside wall of their house. "Somebody must have stuck them in the middle of the night!", they concluded. As they went closer and read it, their faces were grim at first and they burst out laughing soon.

For, both notices were of the obituary type.

p.s. Each guy arranged to print the obituary of the other.

 

Thanks again for being the first to appreciate, Pallavi. -rgs

 

Your feedback made me think, Suryakala. Yes. You are right. But certain traits are known only when we put the person to test. Isn't it? Thanks for your feedback. -rgs

 

Both of them were so sure that she would pick only them, so, obviously, in order to complete the provoking, arranged to just publish the obituary note. Thanks for your feedback RamyaRamani. -rgs

 

True Viswamitra. But had they done that, it would be like Vikraman's [tamil movie director - "Vaanathaip pOla", "Surya Vamsam" fame] movie. Besides, there is yet another risk. We cannot ignore this argument - "This person was so convinced that the other is the groom, so he published the wedding invite of that girl with the other one!". Thanks for your feedback. -rgs