Right from my childhood, I had been fed with stories from mythology about honesty and
how it works in one’s favour, even though one has to face innumerable hurdles
in life. So impressed was I with those stories that I decided I will remain
honest in my entire life. Honest people
always went to heaven, you see, and the dishonest ones were deep fried in hot oil
in the hell! (Imagine fried politicians sprinkled with coriander leaves and topped
with chilli sauce). Ok, so my mission in life was to be honest at all times,
even on the face of adversity!
So carried away was I with the ‘be honest’ policy that I
never thought that I would fall out of favour with most people. I remember the
day when my friend had bought a brand new dress. In her excitement she wore it
and showed it to me. According to me it had very gaudy print and loud colours
and to be ‘honest’, it did not suit her a bit. I blurted out the truth, and I
had to face her wrath for days to come. She stopped talking to me. ‘How dare
you behave so rudely with me?’ she questioned, when I confronted her. ‘Is being
honest akin to being rude?’ I wondered. After that incident, she became very careful
of showing me anything, lest I, in my zest for honesty, tell her something that
she does not like. Yet the scatterbrain that I am, I refused to learn a lesson.
I believed that ‘honesty is the best policy’ and such incidents are just a
hurdle on the way to heaven. The traffic
cop does not like me. I insisted on a receipt. The passport officer does not
like me. I refused him his chai-pani. Friends
are a little wary of me. Things came to
a high when an acquaintance accused me of being an egotist.
Strange are the ways of the mind! We want to hear only good things about
ourselves, even if it is far away from the truth. We don’t want to know ‘what is’. Rather we
happily slide in the cocoon of falsity and wrong notions about ourselves and
remain there for the rest of our lives. The moment someone tries to gently
remove the cobwebs from our mind, all hell breaks loose. We curse and accuse
that person of being too frank. Slowly
things started to dawn upon me. I realised that by being honest I had made more
enemies than friends. Though this realization came in a tad late, isn’t it
better late than never? Things like honesty,
truth are values that exist only in mythologies. I should have known it! To expect these things in
actual life is like expecting to have the moon all for you. It is not that it
does not exist, but it is a rare breed. Is it a wonder then that honesty is
never appreciated in this country? So
when the innumerable chamcha hoardings, heaping praises on a politician’s
‘achievements’ adorn our public places, it is just a way of showing how honest
is an enthusiastic wannabe to his boss. Saying good things in public definitely
is a way to garner more support, isn’t it?
So, I realised that just being point blank honest is not good
for my emotional health at all. Calling a spade, a spade, is not going to help.
I need to call a spade, a spear, sometimes. I need to speak what others want to
hear. It is just an art of serving the juice of bitter gourd in a beautiful
silver cup. I might as well learn this art fast or else be doomed to be faced
with resentment, and also be branded as arrogant, ignorant, stupid fool. People
don’t like honesty in its stark naked avatar. Honesty be damned!
So now, slowly but surely, I have learnt to talk in the
manner everyone wants to hear it. All those talks of having true
friends, if you are honest, is humbug.
I want friends, true or false. Now I make it a point to praise everyone
I come across, whether I like it or not. And the results are here to see!
People have started liking me. They now call me very friendly and warm. I am finally
learning the ropes of the trade. So much for honesty! Well, I had been a fool
to believe in all those stories. But surely the heavens by now must have
understood the way the earthlings work and pave my easy passage there. After all
I was once a keen believer in honesty!
