True Lies

My mobile rang. “Very very good morning sir”!

I was casually going through analyst reports this morning to see where I should invest my surplus money! I was casual not because the amount is small, but so far whichever stocks I had invested is not going anywhere, sorry let me correct myself, they all go down deep south and very close to Kanyakumari now! Normally I cut these phone calls after those free wishes. Today I thought let me check who it was. Yes he was from an investment firm. He wanted a few minutes of my time to explain the attractive mutual fund schemes, his firm can offer. I told him a big “lie”. "No, I do not have money now". I did not want to waste a few minutes of my time to explain to him that I would not believe in what he would say, as he would be biased. I am looking for so called “independent” and “unbiased” analyst reports! I lied to him for my own good.

Did I tell a lie last week? Yes, I did. I was buying guava from my usual vendors, a couple. For the last 3 years I buy guava from them only. I have a strong long term relationship with them. Once I asked them “how long are you in guava business?” They thought I am trying to find out their credentials. “Sir, we have been doing this from our childhood, in fact my father started this” told the husband,  not sure he lied to me. Poor man did not realize my true, dirty intention of asking that question! I was trying to develop a hypothesis that if a person associates with guava for a long while, he/she might turn into guava look like. Both of them had shaped into huge guavas. Now comes the lie I told. The lady asked me “haven’t seen you for weeks to buy these?”. I was not prepared for this question, who would bother if I eat guava or not! There was no reason; I just didn’t feel like eating guava. But I told her “Its winter no, I might get throat infection, so avoided guava for a few weeks”. I told a lie, for no reason.

Yes, a few weeks back I had told another lie. Don’t jump into a conclusion that I am big liar. I told only a very few of them, so I remember them. There are a number of truths I had told, I can’t list all of them. But all I can say is whatever I write here is truth and only truth.

During my jogging a stray dog came close to biting me. It could not get my flesh, but my pants were torn. When I reached home I told my wife that it happened because of some protruded wire mesh on the fence in the park. If I had told her the truth, that day she would have worried whether I really had a dog bite or not. In subsequent days, she would be worriedly imagining my returning home with half my pants eaten away by those stray dogs! I lied to her for her own good.

Will I tell I lies in future? I can ruin my present by worrying about those lies in the future. So let me not go there at all!

While requesting for leave from office is when maximum lies are told.  People would be highly innovative in giving or cooking up reasons, irrespective of his boss being reasonable or not. I can understand for a genuine, inevitable reason, one has to take leave but that needs to be validated not by you, not by your boss either. I would like to institute a “Satya Ratna” award and confer it to somebody who can prove to me that in his life time, he never gave a fake reason to get leave from office!

There are instances when one gets confused whether to tell the truth or not. I heard a joke in a mallu movie, the little boy says, “if I tell the truth my mom will be killed by my dad, if I don’t then my dad will eat dog meat”. The boy likes both his parents, but they don’t look each other. To take revenge on her husband for the previous day’s beating by him she had cooked dog meat for her husband!

I had a similar experience at my young age, nothing to do with dog meat. We used to get free hours in school, as our Hindi teacher used to be absent habitually due to his heavy drinking habit. (He used to be sober for weeks continuously when the exams approached and he would complete the portions even by taking classes on weekends. I envy his commitment to us, though poor man got into this bad habit, which he just could not stop). During these free hours we can go and play in the neighboring temple grounds. So my friend, who used to get a lot of pocket money from his father,  and me will rush to Sanjivan’s cycle shop and hire one of those small cycles. I would help my friend while he was learning and  he used to return that favor by allowing me couple of rounds at the end. So without my knowledge, I got fairly good balance in riding and I forgot about it totally. Vacation came, I went to my home town. Yes, it was a town different from the village I had been living. My uncle came with that stupid idea, “do you know cycling, you can learn it this summer”. Oh man I didn’t expect this would ever happen. If I tell yes, that I know cycling, then I need to explain my “free hour adventures” to my parents. If I tell no, that I don’t know cycling, then I was not sure whether an expert like me would be able to ride like a novice person ! Cycle came, I rode couple of rounds, my uncle understood, went and told my parents the needful. The rest is history!

So should one ever tell a lie? One needs to try to avoid as much as possible. Only if it does no harm to anybody but does good to somebody. Like my lies to “investment firm wala” and to my wife. But definitely not the one I told to guava couple, though it does not harm anybody at the same time it does not do any good to anybody either. It would be like smoking a cigarette for the first time with your own money, - not inhaling smoky nicotine, but just puffing - and at a secluded place where there is no question of  any passive smoking either!

If you tell one lie, you need to tell another 100 lies to cover it up, we all know. But, there is nothing wrong in telling a lie when it does at least good and does no harm to anybody. And of course do tell a  lie if you think, you will not be alive to tell another one !

Truth prevails all time. Satyameva Jayate. It is a proud moment for all of us. An Indian is going to become CEO of Microsoft. According to him what he does is defined by his family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge. I am sure truthfulness is one of many good qualities he possesses. Rightly, his first name underlines that fact.