It’s always easier to live in a lie, isn’t it? Like the man who paints cracks in his walls the colour of ivory and tells his wife, “Look darling, the house looks brand new!” Until the monsoon comes, the roof caves in, and they both discover the lie is more expensive than the truth ever was.
And so, as I watch India today, I see many fooled by glossy photographs clicked in China—handshakes, smiles, and stiff-pressed suits. The television anchors gush, the newspapers oblige, and the WhatsApp forwards glow with “India is respected worldwide!” But are we respected? Or are we, like that house with cracks painted over, just living in a lie?
The danger with lies is not that someone tells them—it’s that we start believing them. We build castles in the air, plant flags on them, and then march proudly around shouting, “Superpower!” Meanwhile, reality chuckles. For while we imagine ourselves courted on the world stage, the real stage shows us assaulted in Ireland, ignored in Australia, and increasingly dismissed elsewhere.
Why do we live in such illusions? Perhaps it is a sense of inferiority. For a few fleeting years, we could pretend to be the equal of giants. We could tell ourselves the world envied us, admired us, even feared us. And in that make-believe, we found comfort. Like the emperor in his famous new clothes, we paraded half-naked, thrilled at how grand our garments looked—while the world smirked.
But there is danger in this lie. Because one day, reality knocks, and it doesn’t knock softly. It barges in with headlines of students beaten abroad, with economic indices showing us lower and lower, with global summits where our voice is drowned out. And then we, who were so drunk on illusion, stagger and stumble in confusion.
Respect cannot be photo-shopped. It cannot be staged with backdrops of red carpets and dragon palaces. Respect has to be earned, inch by inch, through truth in capital letters, through real growth, through dignity, through policies that make the world nod in admiration, not laugh behind our backs, as we jump towards China, a country whose products a few months ago, we banned.
Inside our own country, we are still lulled by these lies. The television blares, “India rising!” and we sit smug, thinking the world trembles at our rise. But step outside, and the truth greets us with a cold wind: the world does not see us as we see ourselves.
It is time, perhaps, to stop painting the cracks, and start repairing the house. Time to shed illusions of grandeur and face the reality that we are respected only when we build something real, not when we live in a make-believe of our own invention.
The danger of living in a lie is that one day, truth arrives—and when it does, it is merciless.
That truth is already arriving-super fast..!
The Author conducts an online, eight session Writers and Speakers Course. If you’d like to join, do send a thumbs-up to WhatsApp number 9892572883 or send a message to bobsbanter@gmail.com
