Dil Ki Baat
Telling the truth is easy. If to clean your room is easy, to keep your desk/table clean is easy, to keep your mobile contact list and your computer desktop neat is easy. It is a habit. To do otherwise will make you feel uneasy, feeling of dirty within.
It was one such feeling I was harbouring since few days. It was a feeling of being dirty within. I knew I need to clean it. Will confession do? I am not a Christian but I can do it in front of my Krishna deity. And I tried it. Oh, I found him laughing at me. “You can fool others; you may even fool yourself, but me? Forget it”
I knew It will have to be true cleaning to get rid of this feeling of dirty within. Telling truth is not just telling it to anybody, anywhere. It is telling one to whom it matters. And in a way that adds to love and not hurt. If it hurts, it is not truth. For truth never hurt. So when I finally let it out, it was with tears freely flowing down from my eyes. It was melting of my ego.
Why did I not tell him that I was going without him to Mansarovar yatra? I thought he was not fit enough and will not be able to go through rigorous and demanding tour schedule. He may not be able to withstand cold and thin air with less oxygen at height. I thought he may not be able to walk on mountain track. I thought it will take away lots of my time to be with him, taking care of him and being with him, trailing behind others and will miss most of thrill and fun of the tour. But I could not tell him this.
We had often thought and planned together, to go to Mansarovar yatra. We planned it every year since last many years. But for one reason or other could not make it. Years passed. Time took its toll. My friend developed knee pain and it got worse. He is now not able to walk fast and climb up the track as he used to. Though we walk daily in the garden and share all that two close friends will, I did not have heart to tell him that I will go for Mansarovar yatra without him. I felt it will hurt him. I felt he will think I consider him a liability or he may ask me to postpone it till he gets better.
Fact is I was too weak to tell him that he was not fit in a way that doesn't hurt him so I avoided telling him altogether. Now having booked myself for the tour I cannot bear thought as to what will my friend feel?
When I began telling him that booking for Mansarovar yatra has started for this year and I plan to go, he put his hand on mine and asked me that I must book it only for myself and he will not come as he was not fit. With tears rolling down I told him I had already booked one seat for myself. I was coward not to tell him that he was not fit. I am sorry. He hugged me, tears rolling down his cheeks also.
His words “Truth dil ki baat hai, dimaag ki nahi” will always be guiding me when I am reluctant to say truth that may hurt.
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