I have always been notorious from school days for being blatant. And that has been my policy with other people too. I know it hurts others at some times, but though I cannot withstand the same from other people, my stand remains the same. Maybe it runs in my veins. Hence it was no surprise to me when S3 gave me this yet another award for being honest! (oh yeah!!)
Looking back, I can only remember painful anguish, disbelief and blankness on the faces of people who I have been honest to. Hence being truthful or honest, is the most risky thing to do, as most people term them as arrogant and blunt and short tempered. Honesty is the best policy only when the situation is apt or the persons are suited for being honest to.
In this place and time, where bribery, politics and crooks rule the world, I have often wondered what would be the value of truthfulness and honesty. Everywhere, you see the ads saying “Sach ka saath do”, “Truth wins”, “Stop Corruption”,the Jaago Re campaigns. What use of these revival, when we cannot implement them. There are many instances where even if we want to be truthful to ourselves, we are not able to. A simplest example would be the government offices. I came to know that in Bangalore, for every property registration, bribes are a must. Maybe this happens in other cities too. Does that mean we should stop buying? Who will pay for the loss. Only us. This reminds me of “Hindustan” movie or “Indian” in Tamil, where Kamal Haasan goes on stopping corruption. Totally ‘bakwaas’. It rather inspires people to take the violent path and nothing else.
These days, everyone is being too much diplomatic. People are not honest in relationships too at times. Words like truth, love, trust and friendship have lost its value. You get reminded of these only when, small kids ask big big questions of life for which you cannot answer. Every person has a different face for different persons. God promise and mother promises are made to hide the facts from many people.
I remember an instance just before my marriage. It was marriage eve, and for the reception we did not had arranged for beauticians. But in the last week, we had second thoughts and we went to ask the parlors for the makeup charges. Prices very very huge, though we said it was just a homely function and not a big reception and that it would be enough to assume it as just a normal party at home. Finally, mom arranged at a parlor saying its not for marriage but just for a different party. When I went there, I could not hide truth and they made me blurt all out. They were very furious, and was behaving very strangely. I did not even liked the make up they did.
For that matter, some local stores behave exactly opposite. For medicines or similar things, if we do not find in one store, the store people themselves help us out by offering where we find the medicines. They could have told that the medicines would be available next day or something like that and make us visit the store again. They did not.
Is it the money that plays the crucial factor for different people to forget humanism? Maybe it is. Maybe its not. What about jealousy and greed? Bah! there are so many negative sparks spreading around. Its best to not talk about all these.
But will we able to teach the next generation about right and wrong, honesty and humanism, when we do not practice ourselves what we preach? We never know…
