About Sabareesan's comments: While I agree with what you have stated entirely, it is not applicable to this case. The Uncle did not give direct advise – he made a sneering remark about this young lad (Mr. K) to someone else. That is not like “intended critique” for sure… But whatever, it did very well to challenge Mr. K to a level higher than what his family's plight at the times drove him to.

On the side -
My father too underwent hardships to make a climb in life (we are again talking of the 40's here). He traveled to Kanpur to get a break in life in the “Chemical Industry” after a hard-earned honors degree in Chemistry from Central College-Bangalore. After years of toiling as an apprentice and not getting a useful job assignment at Tata Chemicals, he returned back to Mysore with a lot of gritty experience and not much money. He settled for a career in education – Lecturer and so on. He realized his dream of doing practical work at Industry after his retirement, when he worked as a Lab Chemist for an aromatic industry in Mysore, refining extraction of pure Vanilla starting off from Benzene! He got a pittance at that job, but he needed it all the same to sustain the household, so he did it. He used to cycle for 12 kms up and then again down, for this job, at the age of 58. He was an honest and proud man – tough life for my mom with him, but I am sure she was mighty proud of what he achieved.