The Believable lies

"Chechi! What are your plans tomorrow?", asked Sulochana.

"Nothing!", replied my mother.

"Oh! I am going to my brother's home and we all will be staying in a hut in the middle of our fields tomorrow night".

"Family get together aano?", asked my Mom.

"Yey!No! Super Moon alle? That's why" came the reply.

My mom was puzzled.

Sulochana continued," It is predicted by NASA that on super Moon day which happens once in 1000 years, due to more gravity from moon, there will be quakes and tsunamis. There are so many posts in Facebook related to this. Didn't you see, chechi?".

"Don't I have any other work?", thought my Mom.

"Anyways if there are quakes, stay away from the electric posts in your field", my mom replied in a sarcastic tone.

There are many such Sulochanas among us nowadays who are easily foxed by the hoaxes and rumours flying all around us in every form. Apart from worrying about the naivety of people who believe such hoaxes, credit must be given to people who could think off such hoaxes, make them believable and trick us, though we know that lies travel twice as fast as the truth like raging wildfires.

The Great Dronacharya in the battle of Kurukshetra, per records happen to be the first major victim of a popular hoax on his son's death orchestrated by the Lord himself. Drona didn't try to verify the news himself but rather depended on other's words.

If it was the immortal Ashwadhama who was rumoured dead in Kurukshetra, many celebrities in the present age are being mercilessly killed by hoaxers in social media.Unlike the Mahabharata days, with the world news accessible through the smartphones with us, people still believe the forwards in social media and not even try to verify the authenticity of the information. This latest fad among the hoaxers in social media spreading false news that a celebrity is no more, is a disturbing trend. 

There are some other less disturbing hoaxes which we see regularly. Most of these would start like "As per NASA release" followed by a warning of Pralaya or other natural phenomena. Not so far ahead is the day when we get and believe rumors like " As per NASA, the sun will rise in the West tomorrow and this rare phenomenon occurs once in zillion years". Even if such a hoax comes up, it would be made very believable so that everyone may be tempted to believe it except for the person in topic, the God on seven chariots.

Rather than falling a prey to such tricks and hoaxes, it is time to remove the rust on our sixth sense and use them to differentiate the truth from the others. After all, the Great Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar has already conveyed the message which I want to reiterate here .

"Epporul yaaryaar Vaaiketpinum Apporul

Meipporul Kaanpatharivu"

Meaning:-

Whatever may be the source of any information, knowledge is to extract and assimilate the truth in it.