Truth has its own aura and essence. No matter how believable and comforting a lie might be, it always fails to truth in the end!

One such incident happened with me in my life. It not only taught me how truth was the ultimate answer for every situation but also made feel the beauty and comfort offered by honesty.

When I was in my high school, our school had kept a send off for the tenth standard students in our school. We being a part of the high school were a part of the farewell party.

Farewells meant fun and a lot of rule breaking. My parents had taught me to always let them know about my whereabouts and my plans for the day if any.

One day before our farewell, my friends gathered for a meeting and decided to hangout after the farewell and the place they had decided was a mall very far away from school and a place I had never been to. I knew I had to take my parent's permission and go only with their consent but a devilish voice in my head said me that my parents would decline the idea and not let me go. Whatever the reason, I decided to keep the truth out and instead of telling my parents that the farewell would end by 1:00 I lied to them that it would end and 5:00 saying it was a very long function.

So at 1:00 when the whole farewell party had come to an end, I tagged along with my friends to that mall hoping to have the time of my life. But what happened was exactly the opposite!

The whole way to that mall, I was overcome with a strange splurge of guilt. While all my friends chatted and had fun, the only thing which kept tugging on me was the fact that my parents were not aware about this and I had lied to them.

The mall was beautiful but not alluring to my eyes and I was just too overcome with guilt to enjoy the moment. All my friends had asked permission while I had lied to my parents.
We dined at a beautiful hotel inside the mall but I didn't order anything inspite of my friends even willing to give me a treat. My bestie noticed that I was not happy and confronted me about it while sitting on a table. I told her what was killing me and how I wanted to call up my parents and tell them the truth right now. My wonderful friend mirrored my feeling and said that I better make it fast as there was a movie planned next and I would never enjoy it if I didn't get rid of the guilt. So, I borrowed one of my classmate's phones and called up mom.

She was angry with me and asked my why I was calling her and telling now. I told her that I was sorry and I was calling because the guilt was eating me up. I could sense my mom smiling. At last she told me that it was okay and that I should never repeat this behaviour again and asked me to enjoy the evening and also told me that she wouldn't mind if I was a bit more late. My happiness knew no bounds. The truth had comforted me and I felt like I just won a battle... an inner one!

I enjoy the evening and learnt a beautiful thing that day :)

The above TVC so beautifully describes the same thing!!

Hygiene - This is a word which is still alien to many Indians.

In every other street you pass, you find an example of why India can never be compared to a developed Nation, hygiene wise!

Coming to the Rural areas, it's a more annoying case! It's only in movies that farms are beautiful because of course, you can't smell the actual torture the actors are facing!

Did you know farms are, yes farms(where all the food in the world is born) are the top chosen places for open defecation? Yes, sadly that's cent percent true!

A few blocks away from my town, there is this colony of slums which I assume is the most gruesome part of Bangalore. The highlight of that colony is an open gutter, several garbage dumping sites and every thing stinky and unhygienic one can think about.

I usually avoid that  colony but sometimes Bangalore's traffic gives you no choice hence I get to catch a few glimpses while passing the roads from that colony.

The five minutes which it takes to pass that colony will suffice for five years! The whole I block my nose but sadly it doesn't help that much. The stink of garbage mixed with that of the gutter kills your whole being to a point that you wish you were born noseless!

Two days back I got to pass that colony and I still shudder at that memory. You might think that the fact that there's a gutter there is why the people dwelling there can't help that stink but dear people! Please don't assume so, humble yours truly will tell you why!

Okay, so as soon as we entered this colony, hell broke loose! I am not even mentioning the gutter here, but the fact/man who bothered me was the amazing genius who I assume was 35-40 years old was peeing, yes PEEING in a whole which was in the middle of the road!!! *Shocking*

What was more gruesome was the fact that there were many people passing by and NO ONE felt the need to stop that man who didn't look like mentally disabled from any angle except for the amazing business he was doing in the middle of the road!!

I have vowed to avoid that colony to my best chances from now on!

It's situations like these and more for which we need to speak up and disagree. We need to let the Government know that all this is not going to work anymore! They have to provide proper toilet facilities.