Status symbol, anyone?

In a Lahore high court judgment delivered in 1924, two English judges expressed the opinion that all Punjabis were liars. For 81 years no Punjabi took umbrage at the uncharitable obiter dictum. Suddenly this year they are up in arms and want the outrageous slur on their character to be expunged from the judgment. However, there was something in Punjabi character which elicited such unkind opinion in a judgment which could be cited as a precedent for times to come. They were deliberating on the veracity of dying depositions made by a Punjabi victim of murderous assault. It is usually assumed that when a person is on the verge of death, he does not tell a lie. That, the judges opined, did not hold good for Punjabis. If the victim was stabbed five time by one person, he was inclined to settle his scores by naming five of the enemy faction as his killers. As a result, lawyers for the defence were able to punch holes in the dying declaration, and all the accused went scot free.

My experience bears testimony in favour of the judgment. I had a Punjabi tenant who converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman. However, he preferred to maintain his Hindu name and identity when in India and a Muslim name when serving in Muslim countries. He was a compulsive liar. In India, he swore on the Gita to tell the truth, in Muslim countries he swore by the Quran. He lost out everywhere and was sacked from one job after another. When asked to produce his passport, he was forced to admit that he had two with two different identities.

My grievance against the Lahore high court judgment is that it singles out Punjabis as inveterate liars and says nothing about other Indians. Are others less prone to lying than us Punjabis? I don?t think so. As soon as any of us is put on oath, he takes it as a challenge of wits. If he tells a lie, he wins, and if he tells the truth, he loses. With us Indians, perjury is no great crime. It takes brains to invent lies; any fool can tell the truth. Unfortunately, to get away with a lie you have also to have a good memory and remember what you said earlier: mendacem memorem esse oportere ? a liar needs a good memory, wrote Quintilian. The Psalms support this dictum: ?I said in my haste, all men are liars.? One has to practice the art of lying for many years to become an accomplished liar. Mark Twain in his Advice to Youth wrote, ?some authorities hold that the young ought not to lie at all. That, of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary. Still, while I cannot go quite as far as that, I do maintain and believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art and continued practice shall give them that confidence, elegance and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable.?

We have a very laid-back attitude to lying. At the worst, a liar is warned that he will be pecked by a black crow. What is a mere peck?

Jhoot boley kavvaa kaatey/ Kaaley kauvvey say dario;/ Main maikay chalee jaoongee/ Tum dekhtey rahio.

(One who lies will be bitten by a crow/ Beware of the crow that is black;/ I?ll leave you and return to my parent?s home/ You just watch and see, I?ll never come back.)

The newest menace

For over thirty years I have had a sign-board beside my doorbell reading ?Do not ring the bell unless you are expected?. Its effect has been disappointing. Couriers who usually come in the afternoon when I am snoozing ignore it. There are others who think the notice is not meant for them. They push my servant?s remonstrances aside and stride in unabashed. Some I am too timid to protest against, some I give a tongue-lashing. There are others, mostly ladies, who don?t bother to enter by the front-door, but by the rear entrance past the kitchen. My cook and his assistant know them and think they have a permanent visa to invade my privacy. I give them a gentle tick-off before I talk to them. They make their visits short.

Now I am up against a new kind of menace which has assumed epidemic proportions. So I am putting up another signboard, on the mantlepiece of my sitting room. ?Please switch off you cell phones before you say hello.? I have been driven to this because no sooner ladies like Malvika Singh, Kamana Prasad, Reeta Verma and others bustle in, cell-phones in their handbags begin to ring. They take them out and pace around the room like caged tigresses while I wait impatiently for them to stop. Meanwhile, before I put up the board, I tell them, ?Kindly leave your cell-phones by the entrance and be sure to take them when you leave.?

A few years ago, cell-phones were a status symbol. If you had one in your pocket, you were a somebody. Now every aira-gaira has one: it has become as common as a wristwatch. Wherever you go by bus, taxi, train or plane, you will meet people armed with cell-phones. Even my jamadarni?s 17-year-old daughter has one. She places it reverently on my table when she scrubs the floors. It has a loud musical ring which she can hear from a long distance. She immediately drops her broom or wet duster, picks up her precious toy and runs to a distant corner so that I cannot hear what she is saying. In short, not having a cell-phone makes you a fossil of bygone days. I was given one by my friend, Nanak Kohli. I was never able to operate it. I passed it on to my daughter. A few months later, when she was getting her flat whitewashed, one of the workmen walked off with it. I was vastly relieved.

No one can deny that cell-phones are a valuable invention, particularly in times of emergency. You are suddenly taken ill and need medical attention. You ring up your doctor or a hospital to send an ambulance; you are involved in an accident and want the police to come over at once; your train or plane is running or flying late, you want to inform your family and tell them not to worry. Many people make their engagements for the day and conduct business on their way to the office using cell-phones. But we being a nation of chatterboxes carry our cell-phones everywhere we go, be it to the theatre, a dance recital or a reception. And they ring at the most awkward of moments. Many a time while travelling by train I hear people dial number after number only to say, ?Hello ji, kee haal chaal hai?? If I could, I would confiscate their instruments and throw them out of the train.

Hardly uplifting

In our university building, the lift was notorious for trapping both professors and students between floors. Pleas from students and teachers for repair went unheeded until the students learned that the vice-chancellor was to visit the lecture-room on the top-floor. The vice-chancellor was met by a printed notice on the lift door: ?Flight insurance for this lift on sale in hall on the top floor.

(Contributed by Reeten Ganguly, Tezpur)