A Lesson in Lies!

Aryan's toothless grin

The other day, Aryan lost his Maths classwork. Naturally, i panicked. His exams were approaching and his teacher might have given him important notes to learn. As always, i was at the school next day, and fortunately bumped into his class teacher right at the school gate. I shared my grievance with her. Thankfully, Kinjal Ma'am promised to help me find the book.

When I dashed home from the office (I always to do that, always in a hurry to reach home), the first thing I asked Aryan was did he find the book. With a sweet, toothless grin on his face and a twinkle in his eyes he waved the notebook at me. I heaved a sigh of relief. Thank God, I said.

On flipping through the pages of the book I realized that this was not his book. It was of some other kid or probably an ex-student's book. More than anything, the writing was pretty good and clear. Aryan scribbles, he doesn't write.

 I told Aryan, "Beta, this book is not yours" .

 "Oh! I told the teacher this is my book. Now what to do? You just copy all the relevant stuff and I'll give the book back," said cute, little Aryan, his face brimming with innocence .

"Who's going to copy all this?" I screamed. "There is so much to write and I don't have time, you know that. Keep this book. In case the teacher gets a wind of it and asks for the book, we'll return it," I added without a second thought.

Whoops!!!The matter was taken care of, I thought.

But on the dinner table, these were 7-year-old Aryan's innocent observations: " I never knew telling lies had its merits and I am repeatedly told not to lie. Why so?" All eyes were on Aryan. Mine, my husband and my in-laws. He's was sitting right at the center of the dining table with a questionable look in his eyes. I tried to explain...but does that matter now? The damage was already done.

Tweaking moral values to suit life situations...Ah...life...life!!!