The other day I was travelling in a public bus. A child was asking his mother why so many motorbikes were parked outside the Air Cargo Building near Tribhuvan International Airport at Sinamangal. The mother replied that they were there because the riders of those bikes had caused road accidents and the police had impounded the vehicles. On hearing this, I threw a glance at the child and his mother. Why did she lie to her son? I was trying to figure out.I came to the conclusion that the mother also did not know the real reason those bikes were parked outside the Cargo House, covered in a thick layer of dust. Even I do not know but I am sure that they were not there because they were involved in road accidents. This incident is a reminder of the old Nepali habit: Pretending to know everything and not having the courage to say 'I don't know.'
After this incident, I conducted a mini-research to track this Nepali character. I began asking people around me questions on virtually every issue. I was sure they would not know everything about every issue I raised but, guess what, not a single one of them would admit to not knowing. They would provide vague answers, most of them based on general information and hearsay.
The habit of exaggerating or spelling out false details can lead us into serious troubles. While I was an undergraduate student in India, I was travelling around the historical city of Mysore in Karnataka accompanied by my friends. After finishing the travel, we had to catch the evening train to Bangalore—where we lived. We had almost an hour before the train departed. Tired and hungry, we started to search for a fine place to grab some food. A friend of mine said he had seen a restaurant a little ahead while on the way to the train station. In a hope of quenching our hunger with, say, a Biryani, we started to walk. But after almost twenty minutes of walk, there was no restaurant in sight.
My friend, who earlier claimed to have "seen" the place, came up with a silly explanation. "It was just there. I had seen it. It just vanished," he said. How can a restaurant vanish all of a sudden? Exhausted and hungry, we nearly missed the train that evening. Some people, just like my friend, exaggerate or lie for no reason.
Nepali parents are true to the principle of "spare the rod and spoil the child." They chastise children whenever they ask them questions. I vaguely remember one of the recordings of Russell Peters' stage show, where he presents a similar habit of immigrant Indians in a satirical manner. Peters explains the reaction of an American parent and an Indian parent over the kid's question of why he cannot play on the road.
An American parent softly asks his son not to play on the roadside. The child asks why. The father politely explains that playing on the roadside would be risky. A car might hit and hurt you, and dad would be sad to see you in pain, he explains. Convinced, the child agrees not to play on the roadside.
The Indian dad raises his voice and asks his son not to play. The son asks why. The father gives a scary look and threatens, "Somebody's gonna get hurt really bad today." He means that if the son does not obey his orders, he will be beaten badly.
Nepali parents are no different to Indian parents depicted in this show. We tend to use hands to punish our children, much more than we use our mouths to persuade them. Providing a child with factual details would make a child more likely to obey his parents and also make him smart. I believe one of the reasons American children are more understanding and peaceable is the same. False information and scolding hinders intimacy and closeness between a kid and his parents. The child becomes rebellious.
So the next time your child asks you something, please think a little before you reply.
The writer is a Senior Business Development Officer at Prixa Technologies, a software firm
prayash@prixa.org
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