The Awkward Business of Being Honest

Amaira grew up believing something very simple, that the truth mattered.

It was the sort of sentence that lived quietly on classroom walls. Always tell the truth. Stand by what is right. Teachers said it during assemblies. It appeared in Moral Science textbooks and most students nodded, memorized the lines for exams, and moved on.

Amaira, however, took it seriously. When she was seven, she once admitted to breaking a neighbour’s flowerpot even though no one had seen it happen. She stood there, teary-eyed and trembling, waiting for the scolding. Instead, the neighbour patted her head and said, “At least you told the truth.”

That moment stayed with her. In Amaira’s small world, honesty seemed to work beautifully.

Another important detail about Amaira was that she was an Army kid. Her childhood came packed in cardboard boxes and just when she had memorised the layout of one house, it was time to pack again and move to another cantonment somewhere across the country.

Strangely, instead of making her shy or withdrawn, this constant movement did the opposite.

Amaira grew into someone who could walk into a room full of strangers and feel completely at ease. She had the cheerful confidence of someone who had spent a lifetime saying hello. She spoke easily to people, laughed quickly, and moved through life with a lightness in her step that others often noticed before they even spoke to her.

Her father often watched this with quiet amusement. He was a man who believed deeply in certain principles, honesty, integrity, and doing the right thing even when it was inconvenient. These ideas often appeared during their early morning conversations, while he read the newspaper. “You know,” he would say casually, folding the paper, “life becomes simpler if you always stick to the truth.”

And life, as it always does, moved forward without asking anyone’s permission. The world of adults was more complicated than the one described in Moral Science textbooks. People didn’t always say exactly what they meant. Compliments sometimes hid criticism. Smiles sometimes covered frustration. Decisions were influenced by things no one openly discussed.

And occasionally, the truth, the simple, straightforward truth Amaira had grown up believing in,  seemed to make people uncomfortable.

Years passed. Somewhere along the way, she began to feel that the rules she had grown up believing in were becoming heavier to carry. The world seemed to admire honesty in theory, but resist it in practice.

Recently, she had celebrated her forty-fourth birthday. After the cake had been cut, the candles blown out, and the laughter of loved ones slowly faded into the night, Amaira found herself sitting quietly on the terrace with a small piece of cake in her hand, staring into the dark sky.

“Why is the birthday girl so lost?” Her husband had come up quietly and sat beside her, placing a gentle peck on her forehead.

Amaira sighed softly. “Don’t you think,” she said slowly, “When we were told to do the right thing, there should have been a note stating, as long as it’s easy or when we were constantly taught to respect our elders, there should have been a disclaimer stating, only those who deserve it because of their actions and not the years added to their life?

Her husband looked at her thoughtfully. “Well, I agree,” he said after a moment. Amaira nodded, resting her head slightly on his shoulder.

“Sometimes I feel so let down by society,” she continued quietly. “Every time I step out, there are a certain bunch of people I truly admire, and I wish there were more of them. But then when I look at the other side and see others so caught up in their ego, choosing wrong over right and thinking only about themselves, it makes me wonder....”

Her husband stayed silent for a long moment before replying. “Babe,” he finally said gently, “That’s the world. Sadly, we keep thinking that people will choose to do the right thing. And as we grow older, we assume people become wiser. But that’s not always the case. The sooner you realize that, the easier it becomes to breathe in society.”

Amaira didn’t argue. But she wasn’t entirely convinced either. Later that night, lying in bed, she found herself staring at the ceiling, thinking about all the unanswered questions circling in her mind.

Why had people become so selfish? Why were those who followed the rules often questioned the most? Why did wrong always seem to appear in the majority? Why couldn’t people recognize reality more honestly? Why couldn’t people simply stand by what was right, no matter how difficult it was? Why couldn’t ego be defeated?

And then she remembered something a very young girl, probably in her early twenties, had once said during a conversation. “The world is really going towards the end,” the girl had said calmly, “and the only reason is people. And sadly they will not change. It’s Kalyug. Doing the right thing will only be met with questions, the most basic being, how do you know you are right? And the ones asking will often be in the majority, doing all the wrong things with their heads held high, trying to prove to the world that doing the right thing is actually wrong.”

The thought lingered in Amaira’s mind. With a slightly heavy heart, she tucked herself into bed. But somewhere deep inside, she wondered, perhaps someday, the society might pause long enough to revisit those simple Moral Science lessons again. Because sometimes, the most complicated problems in the world come down to the simplest things we were taught as children and quietly forgot.