Taare Zameen Par-II....The truth about truth

I was in SIDH last year for few months. SIDH is a non profit organization based in Mussoorie in the state of Uttaranchal. It has some 17 schools in villages nearby. I was in one of them, teaching all that I know to little but smart kids there. The time I spent there was perhaps the turning point in my life. It forced me to re-look at my country in a way I was not used to. It forced me to know about Bharat and not India.

While taking a class with fifth grade kids, I asked them once. "Do you people lie"? I got no answers. I then said, "I do lie sometimes. I'm sure even you must be doing it sometimes". They now started raising hands, indicating yes they do it sometimes. All of them raised their hands. All did lie at some point or the other. I then asked, "why do you lie"? The answers they were giving sounded familiar. They lie because they don't want to get a beating from their father or their teacher. They lie, because they don't want any kind of punishment in school. Then a little boy said " we also lie to impress others, our teacher, our friends". That was a really honest answer. I was not asking all this to see if they lie or not. I was asking this to them, to help me look inside myself. All those answers seemed so familiar. All those reasons were mine too. Just that as I grew older, my lies would be more to impress people than actually out of fear of some kind of punishment.

I then asked them, "do you also speak the truth?" They laughed to this question. What a silly question, "yes we do speak the truth", everyone said. Then I asked them "why do u speak the truth?". This question was also addressed to me. We were all thinking. Why do we speak the truth? I had not definite answers. Probably because it's the easiest thing to do, I thought. Just then a little girl stood up to answer the question. "We speak the truth because otherwise no one will believe us."

This statement left me thinking long after the class. We want others to believe us, to trust us.And for them to do that, we need to speak the truth. The same is the other way round. We want to trust people. And so we feel good when they speak the truth. Why does it feel bad when the other person lies?? I guess because the trust is broken. That is what probably hurts. And one lie, causes doubts on all the truths that have also been spoken.

A friend recently lied to me. It was a totally insignificant lie, non-consequential. But that lie shook me, broke my trust. I was forced to doubt every word she had uttered before. I wanted to stop, but could not help think all the statements she made to me. And the thought of them being a lie was disturbing. Maybe I've done the same with other people too. Maybe I've broken their trust too. Maybe just like me, even they asked "why me?"

When I decided to go to SIDH, Pawan ji had told me to come with an attitude of a student. To have an attitude that I may learn something there, from the local people. That class that day proved a turning point in my life. I realized I was not there to do some kind of social service. I was not there to help those kids. I was there to learn. To learn what I did not find in my text books for over 20 years. To know what Bharat is. I had a fairly good knowledge of India, but not Bharat.