A Chain Of Lies

Aman was a very honest boy. He was good and hardworking too. One day at school, the English teacher asked the class to learn a set of twenty words for a dictation test on the next day. Aman forgot to tell his mother about it, so she did not prepare him for the test. When the test was taken he scored only three marks out of twenty. He was very upset. He was also very scared of his father who was very strict. Aman’s friend Kabir said to him, “A little lie won’t hurt anyone, just make up a story. It’s quite easy.”

So at the end of the day, when Aman’s teacher asked him, “What happened today Aman, why did you fare so badly?” He said, “Ma’am, my mother was busy, so she did not have time to teach me.” In the evening, when mother went through Aman’s school bag, she was taken aback to see the marks. She asked him, “Did you know there was test today?” “I tried to tell you to teach me, but you were on the phone with your friend. You did not listen to me.” She looked up in surprise and said, “Really, I don’t remember, you never talked to me about this.”

Later in the evening, when father was told, he was even more furious. Aman said, “The teacher, just said that we should read the words once, she did not specify if there was to be a test. So, I did not learn them up.”

That night, Aman could not sleep. The next morning he learnt all the words by himself. Then he went to his friend Kabir and said, “It’s easier to learn the words than to tell lies. It’s also easier to admit your fault rather than make up a story. For covering up that one lie, I had to tell so many others.”