Nachiketas self-esteem
बहूनामेमि प्रथमो बहूनामेमि मध्यमः ।
किँ स्विद्यमस्य कर्तव्यं यन्मयाऽद्य करिष्यति ॥ ५॥
bahūnāmemi prathamo bahūnāmemi madhyamaḥ .
kim̐ svidyamasya kartavyaṃ yanmayā’dya kariṣyati .. 5..
Among many I am the first; or among many I am the middlemost. But certainly I am never the last. What purpose of the King of Death will my father serve today by thus giving me away to him?
Commentary:
This was a very terrible thing for the boy to hear. “You ask me to go to death? It is to death that you are going to offer me as a gift? After all, what is the wrong that I have committed that I should be consumed by the jaws of death? Maybe among people I am not the best, maybe I am at least middling in quality, but am I the worst that I should go to death? What is the Lord of Death about to do with me? Should I die for no fault of mine? Anyway, these words have come from the mouth of my dear father. He wants me to go to death. Father, stick to your words. Do not withdraw these words.”
This is what Rama might have told Dasaratha because Dasaratha might have felt really sorry for having given the promise to Kaikeyi: “I shall offer you boons, whatever be the boons that you ask.” But when the time came for it and he had to offer the boons, to the chagrin of all people, to his own sorrow and to his demise, he would have very much liked to withdraw the promise, indications to which he gave in his anguish-ridden words to Kaikeyi. But Rama said, “Stick to your word, and I shall fulfil the promise that you have given to Mother Kaikeyi.”
Swami Vivekananda Says —
I am superior to many, I am inferior to few, but nowhere am I the last, I can also do something.” And this boldness increased, and the boy wanted to solve the problem which was in his mind, the problem of death. The solution could only be got by going to the house of Death, and the boy went. There he was, brave Nachiketa waiting at the house of Death for three days, and you know how he obtained what he desired. What we want, is this Shraddha.[Source]
