Origin of Lies

 Origin of Lies

I did a little research recently to see at what stage when children start to lie. With my experience of children under 12 who were at one stage or another sick, I never felt children (unlike adults) lie either with symptoms or complaints, especially when they are in hospital.

For that matter the best history of appendicitis was obtained from a child under five, who happened to be one of my professors youngest child.

It was a textbook history.

As a medical student I made my diagnosis without a hitch.

He said, the pain was there and it is here now, pointing to the left iliac fossa. I gently kept my hand over the iliac fossa and looked at his face to see his reaction which was one of fear. I did not probe anymore but called the senior guy on call. Next thing that happened was I was given the task of explaining to him the evolving scenario.

I decided not to lie but to explain in simple English the next stage of the hospital stay.

I explained my own terms that we need to take a little finger (appendage) like thing inside his tummy out without any further do and he will be out of hospital soon. We would like to do that in his sleep and he would not feel any pain or discomfort.

Then, when he wakes up, his tummy would be little sore with a big plaster over a little cut where he had pain before.

Without much a do we took him to the operating theater and all went well in a matter of hours.

Mixing words with no meaning is probably the beginning of Grand Old Lies and it is Grand Old Party Symbol of Ceylon.

Sometimes, it is the grand old grandfather who confabulates even without a bit of spirits to elevate his moody moods of old age. With senile dementia catching up with age there is no return to reality of young age. He has already forgotten childcare and his childhood memories.

My maternal grandpa was a real gent but my paternal grandpa was a different kettle of fish who was indifferent and messed up with his life and health in general. He had frequent hospital admissions. I had to go and see him in hospital ever so often.

The fairy tales (with tails tagged) often of religious verbosity from Church, Temple, Kovil and Mosque that insinuate the young minds are an extension of the Lies and Life in particular.

Then we have the teachers, lawyers and politicians adding their bit to the global trading of lies. Every Tom and Dick take their appropriate place in our history.

Sometimes, the history itself is a grand old lie concocted long after the demise of the Kings and the Queens.

Sometimes, it is the religion, sometimes it is the race and sometimes it is the gentry of Kings and Queens.

The young kid begins to realize it is the way of life of adults and why not I emulate their traits.

At least till the age of 3 years, children do not have the traits of lies mapped in their brains or in their genes.

It is the very environment with the mother and the father adding their little tales like you came out from the belly button that initiate the grand old lies.

I often begin to think, even inside the uterus, the foetus hears a good dose of lies and he or she is not immune to, in his or her fluid environment that transmit sounds and ultrasounds very well.

The adults who invent and invest on lies and soon he or she begins to realize that to get a good school and then later to become a politician the concepts of lies is the fundamental prerequisite.

From home to preschool to national school lies get bigger and bigger and better and better and the entire country is ridden with lies.

The story that a kid was lost in a balloon illustrates the fact that, given the opportunity the kids do not lie. The little kid spilled the beans when he said, “We did it for a show”.

At the beginning it was for publicity but later the very survival of the story was at jeopardy.

With the election campaign in hot pursuit we must train the next generation of kids to lie and not get caught like the kid in America. We must send our kids to America to learn the tricks of the trade.