That's alright because I love the way you lie...

I thank Joseph Conrad. For he made Marlow lie in Heart of Darkness. For he probed an exploration into that lie. For he introduced the idea of a “good” lie.

A bunch of Conrad’s readers are debating a lie. If I tell my ten year old sister that I’m favouring someone lying because he or she was forced to do so under an “extraordinary circumstance, I’m inviting the possibility of the most perplexed look on an acne-free face. Yes, this is because when she woke up in the morning she was apprehensive about using the eternal excuse of a stomach upset to skip the one millionth activity that Sprindales School chose to organize in six months of a session, she was apprehensive about pouring the milk down the drain and telling her mother that she gulped it, she was apprehensive about telling the volunteer at the gate that she wasn’t on time because the Naraina flyover was jammed. Three lies for her, three statements capable of rendering a potentially ghastly consequence.

Since childhood we’ve been trained to not lie. A lie is a lie, right? Even if it saves you from a day of boredom at school when your best friends decided to skip it because their hormones started going berserk too early in life. Even if the milk makes your mouth stink and you don’t have the will and the time to brush all over again. Even if you know that the prissy volunteer at the gate saw the principal casually walking around the school and decided to build an impression by catching the senior in junior school who arrived five minutes late. You’ve lied to save yourself (when no cause was waiting to kill you).

How complex can one make the whole process of lying? I mean when you grow up you hide the fact that you’re going ten kilometres away to Khan Market under the veil of walking down till CCD. It’s the distance. Walking to CCD is an insult because it takes less than two minutes. So you know that when Ma is calling the food is lying on the table and she thinks that when you reach, the steam coming from the bowls will not die down. You lied. Even though the justification is not articulated brilliantly, you lied. You know it. You lied.

Lying sometimes becomes so habitual that it can make one forget how it would feel to have actually told the truth. It is possible that your parents are busy socializing themselves and they’d be happy to know that you’re eating a meal in company, even if it’s not there’s. But it’s so safe to lie. The action succeeding the lie is so well-guarded that all the tension is cooled off .

Even though you’re swaying incessantly to Losing your religion which is almost on loop at Route 04, your mother thinks you’re still at theatre practice. So yes, you were. There’s the half truth in that which is the complete truth for your mother. You’re not modifying the truth. You’re letting her believe that what she thinks is the truth, is stretched for a few more hours. “I didn’t alter her knowledge of what I’m doing” is equal to “Ok, I lied.”

You’re lying and you’re always doing it consciously. Am I scaring you? Is your karma getting horribly distorted? Is the lying going to teach you a lesson? Come on, I’m not trying to turn on that spiritual switch. It’s ok, we all say small lies. However never deny, that that was a lie. It was born to be a lie. It will live it’s life as a lie. You might say it and it won’t provide a lens to the blind eye. For better or for worse, it’s always a lie.

Confessions of an Inactive Brain

I think I was always a big fish in a small pond. In fact I was treated like a gigantic shark in the kiddie pool. Yea, I can keep harping about how much it taught me. They gave me a freaking certificate for student with "leadership qualities". I sat on it with my complacent butt for so long that in retrospect, I can't even count the number of times I made an effort to build upon anything. I mean if I think of putting up a poster in my room, I have to think really hard on what people around me can relate me with. Literature? No. Unfortunately not even that. I could have an F1 obsession. But I chose to follow Vinny Chase's life closely and see him have sex with the hottest women in the world. I mean E didn't even teach me how to be someones best mate. I'm that ridiculously indifferent. I could have a really good taste in music. But I still keep obsessing over Carry out. ' Cause it's me you, you, me, me, you, all night. My preferences about people are so insanely intense and my levels of tolerance have dipped beyond low. I need a hobby. I need to stop worrying about people. I need to have fun with the brilliant occurrences in the world. Sometimes I just need enough material for conversation. When I move out of my college, I'd have to interact with an unfamiliar intellect and I need to start preparing for this. I think this is turning out to be a secret confession. Of my ignorance. Yes, I've said enough to let it be a secret anymore.

After travelling halfway into the tunnel of post-colonialism, I do think that the history of our culture needs to be given a bath. We have this annoying fixation with subalternity and the funny bit is that it's not even a parasite. I think we are not willing to cure the ailment and have now gotten so used to the idea of living with the fever. Am I getting unknowingly used to my unhygienic ignorant self? Before I though about this, I was under the impression that I just needed to get a spa appointment to let my joints breathe in ease. God no. Looks like I'm choking because there's not enough calcium in the bones.

I'm dreading a future that would make have a past as miserable to look at. It would see in my present such disturbing idleness that it would not even bother to give necessary warning.

I need to get to work. I need to build a past in my present which will at least be worthy of being told and recollected. Lest I land up at 50 when I'm 25 years behind it.

No, telling me that your situation is similar will not be adequate consolation. If you are, do something before your brain dies and you won't even be able to frame a perfect speech on its funeral.