Selective Honesty is the best policy

In a poignant scene from Hrishikesh Mukherjee's 1969 classic Satyakam, following conversation ensues between Naren (played by an excellent Sanjeev Kumar), friend of Satyapriya (played by Dharmendra) and Ranjini (played by Sharmila Tagore), wife of Satyapriya.

Naren: सत्य तो खरा सोना है (Satyapriya is a person like pure gold)

Ranjini: पर सोने को ज़ेवर बनाने के लिए थोड़ा सा तो खोट मिलाना पड़ता है (But, some impurity is required even in pure gold to make jewellery out of it )

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One of the oldest maxims of all times - Honesty is the best policy. However, I would want to add a spin to it by adding selective before it.

First, let’s threadbare honesty a bit. Honesty simply speaking can be construed in two ways, first as being truthful/frank, and second as being sincere. There is no problem with the second definition, but the first one has slight issues with it. So, let’s grapple with the simpler one first.

You need to be honest with yourself and people around you. That’s simple to understand. Only the person honest with himself would be able to implement the point covered in this blog. Honesty begets hard work. Being honest with people’s feelings around you would mean that you are a good person, and you can empathize, and that’s good. Though definition of a good person has its own implications and I wouldn’t dare to tread there for now. One day, we would definitely take it up.

Now, let’s take the harder definition of honesty, which is truthfulness. Should we be honest all the time, or sometime, or selectively.

Advocates of complete honesty (truthful all the time) should email me individually and I would like to talk to you in greater detail! For all my readers, if you really want to watch true honesty and pure truth at play, a movie recommendation right here for you – watch Hrishikesh Mukerji’s 1969 Hindi movie Satyakam starring Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore, Sanjeev Kumar, and Ashok Kumar in a guest appearance. It’s a classic – must watch. It talks about an honest man whose life gets affected by his endeavour to seek truth. More on it some other day.

Life is hard, unfortunately. And nobody gets brownie points for being completely honest. I can’t imagine a person being completely honest all the time, and coming out of life being a success. By success, I mean the usual metrices by which we measure human success. I would’ve loved to try it out myself but such experiments on one’s life is akin to putting all your lives savings in one fund, and hoping that at life’s end, it would fetch you good results. You open the can of your fund at your retirement, and seeing it turn into dust would not be a good sight to behold. To cut the chase, I don’t think somebody would even want to try out the thought experiment.

It's difficult for some people to lie. I am one of them. I’ve faced embarrassing situations where people turned towards me, and I froze, because I knew that they know that I can’t lie. And it really sucks to be the giveaway guy. It’s just not cool.

When it comes to relationships, it gets even harder. Your friend/girlfriend/boyfriend/mother/brother/sister/(any relation you can think of) would always say, “I like people being honest with me.” Trust me, they don’t mean it. They can’t handle the truth. Hence, be selective about it.

If speaking a lie is tough and shameful, start with remaining quiet, or a simple “I don’t know.” Even if you know. With more practice, you can say, “I don’t know,” looking into the eye, unflinchingly.

But let me be clear here - why, when and where should one lie is important to understand. Human beings are emotional beings, and not at all rational. They want to be loved and taken care of. They are fragile entities, and hence selective honesty helps in maintaining harmony in this world. Married men dealing with their wives and mothers or girls going out on dates while managing their conservative parents would know this first-hand. And it holds true for relationship with friends, reportees, reporting managers, or any other relationship one can think of. There is no need to be apologetic about it. If it works, it works.

So, if it makes one’s life easy, doesn’t hurt anybody, then why not be selectively honest about it. But, if your truth can do all the above, then always be honest about it. Being honest is simple, light, and without any frills. I just love it.

Till then, if you don’t trust me, remember, during fierce battle of Mahabharata, even Lord himself had to resort to it when he probed Yuddhisthar into being selectively honest.

अश्वत्थामा हतो इति नरो वा कुञ्जरो वा - Yuddhisthar

Ashvathama is dead (whispers) Not sure human or elephant