The Booby Trap

As you may know, there is this thing called speaking the truth.

Well I can’t tell if you have ever practiced it in your life. But honestly I did try it once or twice in mine. The results have not been very encouraging.

The fault could have been entirely mine; I took others at their words.

“Speak the truth, don’t lie” All used to tell me when I was very young.

So I tried hard at it.

“Why is Raman squeezing Cheeru’s boobies?”

I had just seen it happen. Both Raman and Cheeru were our servants. They were behind the firewood shed when I chanced upon them. I was intrigued. She seemed to be in some pain. Her face looked distorted.

She was making a sort of hoosh, hoosh noise too. Intuitively I guessed something bad was afoot.

The wonder was that she was not crying out. That did put a little doubt in my head. As I looked on, the situation was becoming more and more violent.

I was frightened.

So I ran to where others were and expressed myself somewhat vehemently.

It was as if the world had suddenly gone deaf. No one seemed to be listening. They did not look at me even. It was as though I did not exist in the world.

I did not like it at all. I never liked being ignored.

In this case I had spoken the honest truth and I was being totally disregarded.

But even that did not mater, Cheeru was in mortal danger. I had seen her being pushed back on to the wall. She was definitely hurting. I was sure of that, if I was sure of anything in the whole wide world.

So I became a little more insistent.

“Why is Raman squeezing Cheeru’s boobies?”

My mother cried out in anguish.

“I should die this moment.”

I was alarmed, but on closer look nothing seemed to be the matter with her.

Grand mother too seemed furious over something.

“The shameless wretches”

But my uncle looked greatly amused. Both my mother and grand mother had been always unanimous in saying that “Ravi is mostly dumb”. But in this instance he was the only one who seemed to have heard me.

“Ha, ha the swine didn’t even look round, did they?”

That was too much for my granny. In a flash she turned on him.

“Ravi…….!”

I had thought always, my uncle, he was never the one to fight with his mother. He immediately left the room.

Seeing this, his wife became indignant. Normally she wouldn’t dare utter a word in front of the elders. She did so now.

“The disgrace!” Her voice was a screech.

She was still angrily looking towards the door through which her husband had just disappeared. She seemed intensely wrathful all of a sudden.

Well none are behaving normally today I thought.

I was still glancing from face to face hoping that they would take notice of me at last.

Then Malathi aunty, who always seemed to be in another world, roused herself from her reveries to ask.

“What happened?”

“That” there was a terrible pause “is the last straw!” Granny said. She was livid.

But Malathy aunty did not seem to mind it in the least and went back to her dreamy world again.

Still none of them were taking me seriously. I was losing control too.

“Ma” I yelled.

My mother appeared to be fighting several feelings at the same time by the look of the face she turned towards me.

“Are you going to stand there or going to disappear for ever you lying boy?” Mother shouted at me. “I have’d enough of you”

The black looks on other faces also convinced me that I had done something terribly wrong. How could that be? I spoke the truth and Cheeru could be dying at that very instant.

I could not understand it at all. Why did mother scold me? I retreated from their presence quite crest fallen. These grown ups are a bad lot, I decided, they don’t know the first thing of anything. Cheeru might be dead by now.

But surprise of surprises, Cheeru had not died and she and Raman looked very pleased and happy too, when I saw them again after some time.

They of course did have a sheepish look on their faces whenever they had to come before me from then onwards.

Once Raman even told me.

“We don’t always say what we see you know.”

Well as I was saying I was confused then. What wrong did I do? That confusion lasted for a long time. Why can’t we speak truth, why is the truth taken as a lie?

Much later I came by a copy of Manusmrithy.

The famous (or infamous considering your personal point of view) law giver has allowed to speak a lie on three occasions.

1. To protect one’s life
2. To Protect ones family
3. To protect ones belongings

Well you can make whatever of it. I am still confused.