As true as it may taste

 It is since childhood that the ethics of honesty being the best policy are enthused in us through various means and measures at home as well as school. However, no matter how intricately is the integrity of honesty stitched in our thought process, one cannot deny that the ease of owning up the truth is guided by the consequence associated with it. Yet the guilt of being dishonest is way more. The Kinley ad reminded me of this episode from my childhood.

I was in the tenth grade at school and we were out on an excursion to a national park. A bunch of thirty kids can be quite a handful. So we had been strictly asked to follow our team leader’s instructions and any deviation from the said set of rules was punitive. It was a three day affair and each day we were taken on a nature trail from the base camp. On the final day of the trip, we were taken to the track the migratory birds of the area. On the previous night, we had a gala time at the camp bonfire singing and dancing. A friend of mine, Sarita, was allotted the responsibility to wipe out the fire before everyone retired to sleep. While I was clearing the empty food packets from the camp area, Sarita moved to get the jug of water to wipe out the fire. However, I stopped her from doing so, since I wanted to spend sometime completing my day’s write-up in the journal by the fire. I assured her that I would blow out the fire before going to sleep. So I sat by the warmth of the bonfire and completed the write-up. My eyelids became so heavy out of the day’s exhaustion that I moved to sleep without wiping out the fire. There was a strong wind blowing at night which carried a lit splinter from the bonfire to the food storage area. By morning most of our food source was charred to dust. Our team leader saw this and he lost his temper. He called out for Sarita in anger and started yelling at her for not blowing out the campfire. I was aghast seeing him so vexed and stood there quietly while Sarita was muffled up with tears in her eyes. After a while, we started with the nature trail and our team leader became busy with the preparations for the day. I was not able to garner the courage to face Sarita for my cowardice of not owning up my mistake. I kept to myself, the entire day and skipped lunch as well. When we returned in the evening, I could not bear the burden of the guilt and went to our team leader. I confessed my fault and also apologised to Sarita for the episode. She hugged me tight and our team leader punished me by boycotting me from the final day’s bonfire. Though I was saddened a bit by the punishment, yet it was a relief to get rid of the burden of dishonesty.