CLANDESTINE LIES By Ila Suhas, Hyderabad, India
When I was a kid, 4 or 5 years old, I had a make-believe world of my own shared with my friends. Each day in school, me and my friends would sit in the park after lunch and talk about what 'we people' would eat and what 'we all' would play after going home, as if we all stayed in the same house and were a part of the same big family. Each day for about a year (my KG 2) we all passed our time by fantasizing like that. But we grew out of it by next year. I continued lying though.
All through my 2nd standard, I lied to my friends that I lived in a huge light blue bungalow named 'Uma-Villa' and wore glittery golden mini skirts and black high heels at home (talk about influence of TV on kids). In reality, I lived beside that bungalow in a one-bedroom house with my parents and wore what any other six- year- old would wear. Once in the school bus as we reached my stop my best friend pointed towards "my bungalow" and asked about those people who stood in the balcony. I looked and very well recognized the Auntie and her kids -owners of the house- standing in their balcony. "Oh, them? They are my servants." I replied very conveniently.
After lying like this for about six months I broke it to my best friend in the bus that I had been lying about that house being mine. To my surprise, she took it very well and informed me calmly that she always knew it but was playing along for fun.
Another time, I went to the extent of telling our landlords that my mother doesn't give me anything to eat. That evening when my mother returned from her office, she received cold glances from the Landlord Auntie and her Daughter-in-laws. On asking what's the matter, they angrily confronted her, "Why don't you give her anything to eat?". My mother laughed and informed them that I'm a very big liar and they should think before believing me and also, I'm given plenty to eat. Thankfully they never asked my mother about our house and living in Bhutan, because that's what I had bluffed to their kids. I told them that we came from Bhutan and things are 1/4th the size of things here in India.
Oh! How I loved making up all those things to entertain myself and others also, just to save myself from trouble (most of the times). Alas!! My new best friend in 4th A was very principle centered and reprimanded me(sanctimoniously) for making up fake stories and even busted me in front of my parents(I had told them the whole class failed the math test with me!)
To another girl my age who was an orphan and lived in the ashram my mother visited frequently, I told that I have 10 other brothers and sisters. Ronnie, Happy, Jimmy, Nicky, Tara...so on went their names. For her it was fascinating (understandably) and she loved to hear me ramble on and on about my "family life". I guess I just did that because I was an only child and wanted to live up my dream of having a fuller, noisier family. But now, inevitably, I feel funny and embarrassed about all the lies I made up in my childhood.
As if feeling this wasn't enough, nature gave it back to me one time. I was in 9th std and was going home by the first shift with the primary class kids in the bus. I was sitting with three very talkative little girls. At one stop, one of the girls pointed towards a big house and told her friends it belonged to her. "So who are those people standing in the balcony?" her friends asked. (No prizes for guessing) She replied that they were the servants of her house!!!
I was cursing my fate for playing this cruel trick on me and making me realize (again) how absurd I was as a kid. Although, there was nobody to witness my embarrassment, I still wanted to crawl under a hole in the earth and never come back!
Hi Ila, enjoyed reading this blog.
Oh, almost everyone goes through this phase, so you are one of the tribe...LOL..
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Hi Sangeeta,
Thank God I am!
My father should know this. Till date he remembers everything and he dosen't let me forget it either...lol
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My 7 year old daughter never lies (I think) but she fantasizes... as a child it is sometimes difficult to draw a line. But why Bhutan I wonder? Am curious as I actually spent my childhood there!
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Wow! You spent your childhood there?
Actually I had a friend when I was young who came from Indonesia, the little me had to find a country with in Asia which would sound cool. (and definitely not Indonesia, cause that was enough to blow my lie)
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Well Bhutan was certainly a cool (and unusual) choice. You were a smart kid.
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That was lovely and genuine blogging...have you noticed that most of us express ourselves best when we talk about our childhood blunders? Our guilt is so charted out...I remember smuggling sweetmeats out of granny's secret storage space and going far into the grounds to share them with cousins and then all of us denying flatly about the robbery...it used to be such a commotion every summer vacation, the very same things being smuggled and eaten...and eating green mangoes and drinking well water on top then having diarrhoea...
You have a nice style...Please write more
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Thanks for your apprecation, Suneetha.You are right, we do express ourselves the best when we talk about our childhood blunders. I guess that comes from our fondness for those memories.
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Hi! Loved this entertaining passage. We all must have experienced similar escapades full of innocent bloopers in childhood. And when we recall them in adulthood we regret having missed out that innocence. Your article brought back nostalgic memories of the childhood days I spent with my brother, sister and friends!
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Hi Kalyani,
Thanks for reading it and liking it! It's such incidents which happen with each one of us as children which give a flavour to our childhood, making us long for it when we are adults.
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Ila,
Hahaha... that was really humorous!
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Aww..poor thing you..lol
I could coach you with this knack ...if u want!
ps:Where have you been?
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Sweet innocent lies ! At least they don't hurt people deeply...we all did it...so no need to crawl into a hole..hahaha..
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Hi Jasmine,
I can use what you said to pacify myself but what should I do about those who remember my lies...lol
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Tell the truth ofcourse..haha...they will love you for it..
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Oh! I already did...lol...
And hence, they never forget to pull my leg for it. But I like that (most of the times)
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hi ila,
I remember being much the same during my childhood. A little difference was that i would lie to my parents that i lied to my friends about them. It entertained them and I got some attention from them, or otherwise, they seemed to be more engrossed in talking to each other!
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hi
these are really big lies in a such little age.certainly it can be placed under the category of un-childlike behaviors.i am responding this blog only to caution the people those lie in their early childhood .as lies are the roots of all evil. if a child has learned lying, she would Absorbed her personality within it and then it requires a lot of efforts to de-learn and relearn the real perception and expression.she always fantasies even in daydreaming and ignores the reality of world.this is a great disorders of personality which is earned from the childhood.lies of childhood turns into big lies in adulthood and certainly one has to pay a big price for these lies.in such cases parents especially fathers are always unaware.so if there is such a blunder in childhood, one has to relearn the truth speaking without any fear.otherwise life can be spoiled in adulthood.
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