“Main Gita par haath rakh ke kasam khata hoon ki main sach kahoonga, aur sach ke alava kuch nahi kahoonga.” The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSLMocj3Nfs
This statement seemed funny when watching movies as a kid and I failed to grasp the significance of the statement – why do you need to say ‘nothing but the truth’. I also never gave it a lot of thought. But there are obviously many ways to lie. Why do people lie? Most kids lie because they are afraid of punishment. Take away the fear of punishment and retribution and you will find most people will tell the truth. Reward people for telling the truth and they will happily comply – witness for the prosecution, is a case in point. But there are many other reasons, and many greats who have discussed this at length to come up with the oath. Here, I will share an experience ‘when telling the truth was the right thing to do’ – as if normally it isn’t!
I don’t believe lying or not telling the truth is the default behavior of people. And people who are conscientious will rarely lie, because the guilt of lying will eat them up from the inside and ruin their peace of mind. But we are humans and committing errors is our natural state.
Thankfully, my environment didn’t require me to lie as a rule (to go out with friends etc.), while growing up – there were always times I bunked a class to just hang out – but this was part of ‘not telling the whole truth’ category and mostly harmless – for others.
There’s hardly a kid who is not guilty of manipulating the truth, bend it here and there a bit to get by. This one time, on a New Year’s Eve we were out to party. I have lived alone for most of my college years and didn’t have to answer to anyone every hour or day. This was not a time when communication was cheap or cell phones ubiquitous. So my weekly call just revealed that all we had planned was to order some food, sing, dance and enjoy. The actual plan was to go to a dhaba 35 km out of the city, in a secluded area far away from any town or village.
However, things always backfire at times like these – what’s that, Murphy’s law? So as our luck would have it, the party ended in a bit of a disaster on our drive back into the city. One of my friends was violently sick and our car ran out of petrol. It was a lonely stretch of road and I freely admit I was terrified. Urban legends and ghost stories came unbidden to my mind. Here I was, miles away from home, alone, in a mess at midnight – and my family had no clue about where I was. If only I had been more forthcoming about what my plans were! I spent the night shivering in the cold December air, and any thought of enjoyment was farthest from my mind. No points for guessing what New Year Resolution I was thinking of. Never lie to the parents again, of course.
I was lucky enough to come out unscathed, but had anything gone wrong they would have been completely clueless and, more importantly, helpless when it mattered most.
A lie can make things easy, but it can cost much more. So if you are heading out to party this year without telling your dear ones, think twice – there’s ease in lying, but security in truth.
This post is written in response to Kinley’s ‘Kitna chain hota hai na sachchai mein’ campaign in association with Indiblogger.