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Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
October 6, 2013
Are you a fool for the truth? It’s heck of a question and damn tough to answer. How much risk will you take to opt for truth against expediency? Any kind of truth, any kind of you-know-it-is right situation and the hell with the consequences. Is there a line in the sand where you will say, no, no, no, I am not crossing it.
On the face of it we will all yelp about how we will always go for the truth and no way we’d do anything different. But in reality, even a mini-nudge to our security and out goes the truth and in comes our survival.
Want to be honest? Make a list of all the cowardly things you have done in your life, all the times you dropped the ball, knowing you should have run with it instead. But it was always the fear of consequences that made you walk away, spend our lives walking away. Shut your eyes, don't notice, look east, look up, look away. What could I have done, nothing really....great way to explain your lack of courage.
Truth has different textures. Doing the right thing for the right reasons, believing and never compromising on principle, not being two-faced, taking on issues that are unpopular, helping the weak, these are some of them.
Go on, make that list, it will be much longer than you think. All the times you crammed away the guilt, like stuffing in a pillow, the days you hated yourself because you could not stand up for someone or fight some act of bigotry because, hey, couldn’t risk the job, the career, annoy the boss, upset the apple cart, bills to pay, no heroics for me, we can talk the talk but who is going to walk it, not me.
Think of the times shame crept its way up your jellied spine and you told yourself, look, it wasn’t worth it.
Maybe not, who dare pick up a stone, we are afraid of the truth and if not afraid of it, afraid of ourselves.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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