Honesty
and integrity are two attributes I value most in life. A friend of mine often says that either I am
a reincarnation of Harischandra or
his descendent. (I made a mention about
this in an earlier blog!). That’s a
little exaggeration, but it is a fact that I get irritated with dishonest
people.
I
had a classmate, whom I admired a lot.
Even at a young age, she was very independent and confident and
absolutely uninhibited. Her social
skills were excellent and impressed everyone around. She used to talk to me a lot and I discussed her
at home often. Based on my inputs, my people
at home somehow felt that most of the things she told me were untrue and it was
hard for me to digest their judgment. I
met her a few years ago, after a long time and after we exchanged pleasantries,
I enquired about her friend in her neighbourhood, she often used to talk about
while we were studying together. While we were at college, my friend informed
me that, her friend (who was studying in another college) secretly married her
boyfriend, as he was going abroad for higher studies and decided to be discrete
till they settled down. When I met my
friend almost after a decade, I got curious to know if her friend was still
married to the same guy. I got the shock
of my life when my friend denied having known any friend by that name. Like Kamal
Haasan who tried to draw Sridevi’s
attention in the climax scene of the Tamil
film Moondram Pirai (Sadma in Hindi and Vasantakokila
in Telugu), I narrated all the
stories she told me earlier to facilitate her recollect the past. Alas! She
could not recollect anything. I am still
unable to come to terms with this episode.
When
I started working, one of the office assistants who worked with me was a very
talented and charismatic person. Though a
school dropout, he was very intelligent and artistic and his presentation of
even a mundane job was very good. He was
a poet and a artist and made wonderful artifacts from junk. He was also a habitual liar. He lived in a world of his own and often narrated
stories about his imaginary friends, lover, social work, and the wonderful
opportunities that were knocking at his door.
All of us (I & my colleagues) could make out from the tone and
modulation of his voice and body language, whether what he was telling us was “real”
or “reel”. (Reel is a euphemism for enjoyable lies in Tamil). The stories were narrated in a very interesting manner and
I should confess, all of us enjoyed them thoroughly and we even started keeping
track of the stories and the characters.
The most blatant story he had narrated was that of a lady he had met in
his neighbourhood, who was not only my look-alike, but was also my
namesake. The only difference was my
characteristic smile. He narrated all
this in a very convincing manner. This
guy in reference was not reporting to me directly and hence I didn’t have any
clash with him.
But,
when I took up another assignment in a different organization, I had a tough
time. I had to manage the office
independently and handling the office boys and security guards who lied for
silly reasons was very irritating. I had
to work really hard to initiate them into speaking truth. I had to constantly monitor them, remember
things and cross verify every transaction and advise them often not to lie. It was really embarrassing to reprimand
adults for lying. Over a period of time,
things were streamlined and those who reported to me understood the need to be
honest, except one guy, who was a compulsive liar and was unreliable. He did not deliver as expected and every time
he was sent out on an official work, he would vanish from the scene and return
with funny excuses. He was also stupid
and could never tell a believable lie. To bring about a change, I started collecting
fine, every time he lied and managed to collect a few hundred rupees. With my perseverance, he changed and tried to
be as honest and transparent as possible with me. Reforming this boy into a reliable and
trustworthy person is one of my biggest achievements.
The stimulus for this blog is the topic for
discussion in a popular Tamil TV show
recently telecast, wherein the participants spoke about how dishonest an
average man is, in the present scenario. Most of the participants felt that
there is nothing wrong in being dishonest and it is absolutely impossible to be
honest in the present day world. While
harmless lies are entertaining, serious lies are an indication of erosion of
values. Is the epidemic of mythomania on
the increase?
