A House of Lies

Aditya had come home a bit late today. ''Traffic", he blamed when his parents asked him the reason.

Without wasting any time he went to his study room. He wanted to register his bitter-sweet day in his journal.

1

'Today, it was my practical exam of Biology and I was expected to perform well. I had done thorough revision yesterday. I reached the college half an hour before the exam.

And heaven, I realised I had made a blunder! A serious blunder in noting my timetable. The exam was scheduled yesterday! I had missed my exam! Too scared to talk to my father, I had no idea who would help me out of the danger. Gathering a lot of courage I told my teacher about the mess I had done.

"What??" she reacted as if I had bombed a city. Since this was no medical case, I couldn't even get a doctor certificate. After begging for over half an hour she finally agreed but on one condition. These terms and conditions should have better been reserved for life insurance policies, I thought.

"Call your parents. I want to meet your father. Write a letter giving explanation. You can appear the exam in next batch." she ordered.

Luckily there was one more batch whose exam was to take place on the same day. But there was one word, one person who was standing in my way, 'my own father'. I couldn't imagine myself explaining this mess to him. And then, an awesome idea struck me!

"Madam, my father is out of town. He won't be able to come today." I replied.

"So what do you want? If your parents aren't bothered, please get lost" she frowned.

"Would it be alright if I call my brother? He will surely come within an hour." I requested.

Given no choice by the college, who wanted their students to do well as this was their 'prestige issue', she gave a pale "Okay". My job was half done.

2

"Hello, Joy...." I called Sujoy, my friend and explained him the situation.

"So what do you want? How can I help you?" he asked, his tone suggesting that he wasn't very keen in helping me.

"You are my big brother for the day." I ordered.

"Are you crazy? I am younger than you by a year, how can I be your big brother?"

"I am not requesting you. I am ordering you. And everyone says you look like my elder one. Just come here immediately or else ..."

"Okay I am coming right away." he cut short my conversation and ended the call. Thanks to social networking, I blackmail him for almost everything. I had once, caught him with his girlfriend and clicked him. Too scared of losing his 'clean reputation' he came immediately.

Sujoy, the epitome of lowbrow street smart cool dude came in a completely different look.

"What have you done?" I asked him, looking at his shaved beard, well combed hair and horn-rimmed spectacles.

"She wouldn't doubt me now. I need to take care of my identity dude! I study in the same college. And who is the teacher I need to meet?" he asked.

"It's Shilpa madam" I replied.

"Good Lord, she teaches us English!" his eyes came out of his heavy spectacles.

"Don't worry, I bet you haven't attended any of her lectures. You are too busy with your girlfriends." I taunted him. He threw a dirty look.

3

"I think I have seen you before." she kept observing him minutely.

"No way. I don't attend college" he replied without thinking for a moment.

"I mean I have recently completed my graduation." he tried correcting himself only to dig himself deeper.

"You don't look that old" she replied. He tried faking a smile.

Madam this is not a viva exam, to keep bombarding awkward questions, I wanted to shout.

"Do you know, why you have been called?" she asked without wasting any time.

"Yeah I know. This idiot has told me everything. Please give him one more chance."

I couldn't believe he called me 'idiot' in front of her.

"Alright even the college doesn't want any mess. Just write a letter giving the explanation and he can in appear his exam." she said.

I had already prepared the letter as I knew she would ask for one. Thus I finally appeared my exam

God, I still can't imagine what I had done. Till yesterday I was an honest nerd and today I had turned into a scamster just to save an embarrassing insult from my father.'

Aditya finished writing his journal as he heard his parents talking about something.

4

"What's the matter Sujata, where are you lost?" Aditya's father, Prashant asked his wife inquisitively.

"I heard a shocking story from my friend today. Where is Aditya? I want to tell this one to him." Sujata replied with her eyes looking for her son.

"I think he is busy with his work. You can tell him later." Prashant replied.

"I have a friend who travels with me in train. She is a teacher in some college. She told me, how she was fooled today.

SOME HOURS AGO IN TRAIN

"Rascals! Who do they think they are?" Shilpa frowned, her face resembling a fleshy tomato.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"These morons who study in my college are nutcases." she shouted.

"What are you saying? Can you please elaborate."

"Today a boy came to me in the morning and said he had missed his exam. I thought I could help him. So I asked him to write a letter and call his father to meet me" she said.

"So what's the matter" I still couldn't figure out what she was saying.

"That rascal said that his father was out of town, and requested me to call his brother instead. Going against the procedure I said that it was fine. And you know what he did?" she asked rhetorically.

"What?" I asked the question I was expected to.

"He called his friend who posed as his brother!" she said with red hot eyes.

"Come on Shilpa, how do you know that?" I enquired.

"Thanks to my luck dear. I had already suspected foul play as he never looked five years older than him. Later today, I went to the staff room to check, who hadn't submitted their English assignment. I was just noting their Roll numbers, when I saw an idiot's name who hadn't even attended a single lecture of mine this semester. To know who he was, I asked his class teacher about his details. And heaven! I realised he was the same one, who came posed as the brother to meet me! Look at his guts. He doesn't attend my lectures. But comes to meet me as someone's big brother, though he is actually a year younger than him." she felt relieved as she had finally vented out her frustration.

"So what is the college planning to do?" I asked.

"Obviously suspend those two morons. What else do you think we should do?" she replied.

"You are right. These spoilt brats think they are very smart. Blame their parents, who don't inculcate any values in them." I acknowledged her and got ready to leave as train was about to stop my station.

5

"Can you imagine their guts? They attempted to fool their teacher" Sujata said as she ended her narration.

"Not everyone is like our Aditya." Prashant said with bright eyes as he felt superior for been a father of a 'good boy'.

"Yeah. You are right. I feel proud of him for that." she replied.

"Actually I feel the parents are more responsible for this fiasco. Don't you feel so?" Prashant asked her.

Indeed, they were living in a house of lies.

Hello everyone. This is my second short story. Do reply what you feel about it and rate it if you like it.

The story itself is a perfectly acceptable fable, but the narration really needs to be fixed. After having the main character tell the story in first person for the first three parts, you use a different first-person narrator in part 4 who has no bearing on the story anyway, plus two third-person conversations between Aditya's parents, at least one of which Aditya is listening in on but not narrating this time (so we're told what he's thinking instead of hearing him think it). This gets very confusing for the reader, and I can't see any story purpose for the first-person viewpoint in part 4 or the third-person in part 5 (and maybe the beginning of part 4 if Aditya is meant to be listening in then as well).

I am really glad you finally reviewed it. You and 108 fountains have helped me a lot in my first story. I am just experimenting with different narration styles actually.

I would be happy to know how you felt about the story overall.

I liked this story - a kind of morality tale. As implied in the title, it is similar to the first story in that it shows how a flawed system (in this case an educational system that places pressure on schools and teachers - and students - to produce “results”) can corrupt all the participants within that system. This story portrays your intent much more clearly than the first story. What I like best is that the narrative is very believable, despite its coincidences. Also, I thought the dialogue sounded genuine.

I was able to follow the narrative of who was speaking, but the switch of narrators in Chapter four could be made smoother, I think, if you just make it clear that Sujata and Prashant are the main character’s parents. You could do by simply changing the first sentence to - "What's the matter Sujata, where are you lost?" my father Prashant asked my mother inquisitively.

You might also want to just end the story at the line - "Yeah. You are right. I feel proud of him for that." she replied - I don’t think you need the last line to explain the story. The story does a good job on its own of saying what you want it to say.

By the way, the United States has been struggling for years for ways to improve its education system. In the past couple of decades the emphasis has been on using federal funding as incentives to reward schools whose students perform well on standardized tests. The result has been that teachers spend way too much time coaching the students for the tests and less time in actually teaching the subjects they ought to be teaching.

Thanks a lot man. You are perhaps the only one who has overlooked the switch in narration. Everyone who has read it has told me not to add dialogues in the fourth part. Somehow I feel I am not that comfortable in third person mode.

Interestingly the story is inspired from my personal experience. Actually I had messed up in one of my important exams and my college infact supported me. But I had a very bitter experience in my high school where teachers behaved like ringmasters. So I fused them up together to write this story.

Again a big thank you for reviewing it. I will surely take your opinion seriously and make necessary changes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gaurav Joshi

I am really glad you finally reviewed it. You and 108 fountains have helped me a lot in my first story. I am just experimenting with different narration styles actually.

I would be happy to know how you felt about the story overall.

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The story itself was fine. The important thing to remember when you're experimenting with different storytelling styles is that the reader needs to be kept in the story rather than being kicked out.

Yeah you are right about that. I have made some minor changes which may help the reader understand the switch in narration more smoothly. As you can see, much of the story moves ahead on dialogues. Hence I am not very comfortable in making the fourth part a third person narration.

I have recently created a poll for this story. I request everyone who reads it to give his opinion through the poll

I agree with Calidore on the point of view, but I think Iunderstand what you were trying to do.

Also,this story could be shortened a bit without losing anything significant. No need to revisit the same ground or restate what's already been said.

You could end the story with the college official on the train, and you could drop the last part (part V), as it's a trifle anti-climactic. It seems like attaching a "moral" to the story --let the reader make her own judgement. (I realize you might have to change the title, if you delete that part.)

If you can, try injecting some more humor in the dialogue as it is kind of a funny situation. Years ago I knew a kid who was supposed to bring a parent to an interview for his college admission. His father was busy, so he brought his drinking buddy!


Keep writing.

Auntie

Thanks AuntShecky for your response. I am looking forward to change certain parts of the story.