Never tell lies! It bites you back...

Most of us would be familiar with the childhood story - The truth about Arthur, well not just the title but my story is also largely similar to the book. What I loved about the book the most is truth had a physicality to it - you could stretch it, bend it and so on; unto date still leaves me smitten to the story.

I was in fifth grade and in school, I was terrible in two subjects - Hindi and Science. Surprisingly I chose to graduate in pharmaceutical sciences, but let's save that for another #conversationswithappa

Hindi was bulky, with two textbooks covering prose and poetry. I still wonder how did it help other than me having a neutral accent (not a self appraisal). But I sailed through Hindi somehow, science became an impediment in having a peaceful next two months :D Here's how -

Semiannual test results were declared and I got 13 out of 40 in science. You needed to get 18 to pass. Oops! I was always very excited about drawing, took both intermediate and final art exams in school. Now hold on, why am I telling how well I drew. So like Arthur, I decided to stretch the two arms of the digit '3' to look like '8' and boom - I passed ;) So I get home and appa looks at the test result and he is definitely not pleased but eh! as long as I did not fail.

So life goes on... until there is a PTM announced. My science teacher - Janitha Ma'am, gave me a special note that she needs to speak to my parent. I was super nice to amma for that whole week, thinking that I will lure her with my jolly good behavior to school for the PTM, afterall, amma was always very vocal about her expression and anger. The unexpected happens with appa attending my PTM and then there is straight silence for the next 45 mins - our way back home. Never felt so scared my entire life specially when I knew appa never, I mean never ever disciplined us with a stick.

We reach home and appa asks me to hand out my schedule of reading and chops off my budgeted time of reading Nancy drew and inserts science lessons. Oh my god, that was such a relief is what I thought, but I had to fill six 1 liter water bottles and to top it I was also asked to do that three times a day, for the next six months.

Appa was good at math - while I made 13 into 18, he said 13 + 5 + 1 (bonus for twisting the lie) for filling water bottles.