Lies....................

Lie. What is a lie? According to the Standard Concise Oxford English Dictionary, a lie is " a deliberately made false statement." One doesn't truly get the feeling of being lied to through this formal definition. Lies are different. You need to be told one to know one and to understand how it feels when someone has lied to you.

Every sentence ever spoken by man on earth can be classified into two major categories - Truth and Lies. Truth, we do not have a problem with. Although it may not always be pleasant for the listener but after all, the truth is the truth and one has to accept it, sooner or later. Moving over to the second category, i.e., lies, these are what interest me. Small words which change the course of one's life. One thing needs to be made very clear to all, there are no 'white lies'. A lie is a lie and will always stay so. You may be pondering over why am i writing about, of all the things under the sun, lies.I'd like to make myself clear. All of you have lied atleast once in your lives and you know what a horrible feeling it is. Most of you have been lied to, this time the feeling is only worse. So, it is not about lies that i write, but about the feelings which accompany them. Bad feelings. Feelings of guilt, pain, hatred, shame and all other negative feelings combined into one. LIES.

Now stop here and think for a moment. Why do people lie? Because they want to hide the truth. But why do they want to hide the truth? Because it is dirty, ugly, ghastly and may cause a huge uproar in the person's life. But is it always so? No. Not always. Sometimes people hide the truth as they feel that it may hurt the listener. Don't they understand that when the listener finds out about the lie, he/she will be hurt even more.

When a person is asked why he/she has lied the most common answer received is that " I didn't wwant to, but circumstances forced me" No circumstances on earth force a person to lie. One needs to speak a thousand more in order to hide a lie and just like a goat stuck in a bog, tries to escape but is sucked deeper and deeper. Once a lie is told, there is no way out of the skirmish.

As preached by all our respected holy books, "Truth always prevails" or "Truth alone Triumphs" A liar may not feel so. He might feel lying is easier and guarantees success but he doesn't realise that nothing in life comes with a guarantee because life itself isnt guaranteed. A truthful person, who speaks the truth during crisis may have to suffer for a short period but once the hardship expires, he gains a life of love, compassion, enjoyment, happiness and security. I have only put forward my views. Its all upto you, to lie or not to.

All of us face crossroads in life where we are confused, what to say or do and whether to support the truth or the lies and in such situations, whatever the result be, one can never stop thinking later about what would have happened if he/she had taken another path. Whether lying would've been better. Whether truth would've brought success.It all hardly matters and is beautifully summed up by Robert Frost.

"I will be telling this with a sigh,Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference"

Kislay Kamlesh Choudhary
Class X
Don Bosco Siliguri.

Ayodhya Kaand

As the Lucknow bench of the honourable Allahabad High Court was giving a final verdict on the historically 400 and legally 60 year old Ayodhya Ramjanmabhoomi Babari Masjid case last week, I sat pondering over the possibilities of serious repercussions in the Indian mainstream society.
The case began almost 500 years ago when the then Mughal emperor Zahir ud-din Babur erected a tri-domed mosque in Ayodhya after demolishing a Ram Temple of massive religious significance to the Hindus as it stood over the exact locale where Lord Ram was born. This was the background to a story which took a political fervour in the 60’s and the 70’s. In 1949, a statue of Ram was placed inside the mosque causing a huge uproar and general ill will among the two communities. Numerous riots took place between 1970 and 1990. The anarchy prevailing reached its zenith when on the 6th of December, 1992, an act of national shame occurred. Religious zealots in the guise of ‘kar sewaks’ accessed the mosque compound and tore down the 464 year old structure.
The main motive behind this ghastly and communalistic act was “to avenge for the demolition of the Shri Ram Temple and the disrespect shown to the sacred Ramjanmabhoomi.” Such feelings were those of religious bigotry and fanaticism. This act of ignorance and negligence towards basic human ideals led to one of the dirtiest and bloodiest phases of India’s 7000 year old history. Violent riots shook the country and both the communities were thirsty for each other’s blood.
It was all so unlike the nationalistic unity of the pre-Independence era. In the words of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, “Hinduism and Islam are the two eyes of the beautiful bride that was India.” But after all this, the bride was all but blind.
The 2002 Godhra riots gave us a shocking reminder that even a decade after the demolition of the Babari masjid, there was no visible improvement in the state of matters and sectarian mind-set still existed in the minds of some sections of the society. Eight years hence, the verdict has come. No one knows how the person sitting right next to him is feeling about it. There is an uneasy and unusual calm and quiet everywhere.
What remains to be seen is that has a 64 year old nation, a ‘senior citizen’ in terms of age, really matured into the sovereign, socialist and secular democratic republic it was supposed to be when its constitution was formed.
The court will not announce who was right and who was wrong but the hype, media frenzy and excitement surrounding the verdict does give all of us a chance to introspect and see what is right and what is wrong within us, look around and be decisive about what is right and what is wrong because as the present state of matters prevail, only God knows what is right and what is wrong.
Religion is not perfect, it is flawed because man is not perfect, man is flawed.

Reply from one who was right to all those who were wrong

Sad. That’s one out of the many ways to describe my feelings after hearing the results of the Inter Class Debate. Disappointed is another such word and so are angry, upset, disturbed, frustrated etc. The entire school (well almost) saw that my tongue could blabber pretty well; this article is to remind you that my fingers are no less either. They can do what my tongue cannot. I feel that this wall magazine, being my last, should leave some sort of a message for all the students of this ‘amazingly great’ school. Now I would like to warn all of you that this article contains immaculately explosive material which can cause a huge uproar in this school for a long time to come so if you fell that such a thing should not take place, stop reading and go back to what you were doing.

For all those who have continued to read without heeding my warning, congratulations, you really are brave. Hope you all remember that unfortunate afternoon when I was supposed to speak on behalf of my class in the Inter Class Debate. Let me take you through the entire programme in my own words.

The topic was,” Women make better politicians than men.” Class 10 was against the motion while Class 9 was for it. Our names were announced and the first speaker from the motion came up to speak. We were listening carefully as we had to make questions out of his speech. He mentioned the name of Draupadi in his speech and pointed out that she was a politician. We took note of it. After the speech from the opposition I went to ask the motion a question about how could they wrongly say Draupadi to be a politician when she wasn’t one. The reply from class 9 was “Draupadi knew politics from earlier on and we have put this in our speech to showcase the way in which women were ‘explored’ during the earlier times.” Didn’t the judges notice that Draupadi was a princess and was a heavily pious woman holding expertise in home making? Didn’t they notice the word ‘explore’ which was supposedly used for ‘ exploited’?

. During the course of the debate, we were asked about the numerous scandals under which the Italian PM Mr. Silvio Berlusconi had been charged to which I replied that it doesn’t matter how a politician spends his personal life as long as his political life was smooth and correct. I said that we were not talking about morally correct people but politically correct people. There was a wild audience response to my answer. Something, which I had half expected. Later on the motion said that Mayawati was the leader of Uttar Pradesh and Mamata Banerjee was the leader of West Bengal. Utterly Incorrect. Pritam from our team made a mistake when he said that Manmohan Singh is the President of India but atleast he had the courtesy to apologize before continuing further, which was found missing in the class nine debate team.

I was asked about how could a ‘clean’ politician like Mrs. Pratibha Devisingh Patil become the President of India if women did not make better politicians to which I replied saying that Pratibha Patil was in no way a clean politician. I stated the example of her brother being a murderer and she herself being charged of fraudulency and drug trafficking.I finished off with an extravageant ‘Clean President! Wow!’ which the audience loved. In this answer I was said to have contradicted myself for bringing in the personal life of the President after myself stating clearly that the personal life of a politician should not be brought into question. Why didn’t the judges see it as a reply to a personal question asked by the motion. They stated that Pratibha Patil was clean and I proved them wrong saying that she was not clean. In the proof, which we submitted to the judges, it was clearly stated that Pratibha Devisingh Patil had misused her Local Area Development Fund by passing it on to a fund owned by her husband. I hadn’t added it in my answer due to lack of time. This was said to be one of the major reasons why we lost the debate. We would have surely won if the extremely ‘unbiased, capable, honest and just’ judges had gone through the proofs which we had submitted just once.

I fail to understand why we need to submit proof if it is never read by the judges and passed of as just another piece of useless trash paper.

The only substantial shortcomings on our team’s behalf were the answer to the Bal Thackeray question and a wording mistake in the conclusion. Coming to class 9 , their questions were poor, answers were illogical and even the speakers stammered more than once. In no way do I think two relatively minor errors could lead to the downfall of our team in one of the most lop sided debates I have participated in.

I was extremely disheartened after our loss. I asked one of the judges the reason behind our loss to which he replied ”Look at the board, the marks are given there.” This left me very angry. It is a case of utmost one-sidedness, willful carelessness and hopelessly wrong judgement.

This was the 15^th time I spoke infront of you guys and sadly I will have to announce that due to such unjust turn of events, this will be the debate was the last time I addressed this school. I will not take part in any more speaking or writing competitions for this school unless justice is done to me and my team.

I would like to thank all of you for listening to me during the debate and then reading this article too, but please mind it that I was not the only person in the debate team. I may have been the voice but the words were of the entire team. All those who really felt for us when we lost, stood by me, appreciated me and even depreciated me when there was a need to do so, a big, big thank you. Thanks for supporting me through the toughest times of my life and hope you stay with me further down the road of life.

To all those who were against me, hated me, cheated me and were jealous of me (for whatever reason), I have no complaints against you guys and I really sincerely pray to the almighty god that you do improve sometime in the near future.

And yes, I will really, really miss my mike and the dias.

N.B.: All the views expressed are of the author and have not been compounded or affected by the thinking of any other person in question.