This story dates back to 1996 when I studied in fifth standard. I thought I acted smart with my small lie but I ended up making a fool of myself. But telling the truth was the best thing I did at that time and it made me wise forever.
I decided not to go to School. To sail through it easily, I complained of a stomach ache every morning and stayed back. The idea of skipping school was quite unlike my character thus it wasn’t difficult to convince my parents as well because they thought that I was genuinely not well. Now the truth is that stomach ache part was not a lie just that it was not a ache but an uncomfortable feeling of anxiety and being jittery inside and out. My parents consulted the nearby doctor uncle who was my favorite because he would always give me small bottles of sweet medicines.
On the third day when I reached school, I felt more than one thing. One half of me felt relaxed because the scary part was done-with but other half of me felt scared from the scolding that awaited me at the hands of my English teacher. In the zero hour Mrs. Devdyuti Mukherjee called out my name for roll-call. Usually she would always look at me whenever I said ‘Present mam’ but that day she sounded really strict and asked me the reason for my absence for past days. I lowered my eyes and pulled out my diary which had a note from my father informing them that I was not keeping well. She read through the pages and asked no more. I thought she must be in a hurry now and in the fifth period which was her English class, she would definitely scold me for more. To my surprise, she did not, not that day and never.
In the following week, Mr. Devdyuti Mukherjee, my English teacher and class teacher chose to ignore me completely. She restricted talking to me. She stopped selecting me for reading lessons. Whenever I raised hands, she avoided eye contact with me as well. Obviously I did not need clues to guess what made her do so but I did not know how to put things right.
At the age of ten, I sincerely felt that a small lie had created a ruckus in my life. I had never felt so restless. For the next few days the only thought in my mind was to make my teacher behave as before but I knew this would not come easy. It was all done by me. I wanted her to scold me for my mistake but her indifference was becoming intolerable for me. I loved my teacher and here she was just not talking to me.
That evening, I went to my Dad and bared my heart to him because one lie had become too difficult to handle. First he did scold me a little but later helped me to win back my favorite teacher. Next day I headed to Mrs. Devdyuti and confessed the truth. The story was that she had wanted me to participate in the upcoming Inter-school Debate competition and had given my name to the principal. But I was scared of taking part in the big competition which I was not able to convey to her. Instead of informing her I went ahead and told my science teacher that I did not want to participate in the debate. When Mukherjee Ma’am got to know she confronted me but I refused it. (First lie) But my fear played a upper hand and I did not turn up to school during the two days when final selections had to be made.
Adding more to my lie, I had come back with a note of stomach ache and even made my parents do the wrong (Second lie). But when I confessed the truth to her, the smile returned to her face and even I felt amazingly wonderful. It was such a relief to tell the truth to her and I still remember it made me strong and wise forever. In the days to come, she helped me to overcome my fear of public speaking and I went on to win many ‘best debater’ trophies for my school.
This post is for Happy Hour with Indiblogger and Kinley.
