As Mr. Sen steps inside the school premises, the overhead skies darken, and thunder rumbles. The frightened child beside him, under the same umbrella, cries out in a pitiable voice, "I don't like such days, Sir. Makes me homesick."

"I understand, Surya. Such gloomy days make me feel the same way, as if someone is taking his final leave of the world or something terrible is about to happen..."

Back in the class, Surya asks his favourite teacher, Mr. Sen, "Yesterday, you told us that it is well-nigh impossible to seek out the complete truth. The bell went then, bringing an end to our discussion. Would you tell us today why it is difficult to know the complete truth, if it's okay with you?"

"You know, Surya, I'm very impressed with your curiosity. Now tell me something. What shape is the earth?"

"It's oval-shaped, Sir."

"Until recently, people thought that the earth was round. What was held as the ultimate truth then has been scientifically proved wrong now. So, you see, our views, our perspectives of the complete truth, keep on changing with the passage of time. What may be considered to be the ultimate truth today may turn out to be partially true or even false some years down the line! Now, let's get back to today's lesson. Let me start with where I left the story yesterday, right?" he explains before picking up the textbook.

"'In the far-flung village of Chaitannyapur, Naren Babu was counting his final hour...' This is where we stopped yesterday, isn't it?" Mr. Sen queries.

***

And up in heaven, The Almighty takes a deep breath on his cushioned throne beside His consort and cringes: "I didn't design such a miserable life for this adorable child of mine. Call it karma or whatever, most of it is due to his own doing. He didn't even know that harming others, even for the sake of the truth, is one of the greatest sins that one may commit in life..."

"With his eyes closed and moving his head from side to side, he was heard murmuring something incomprehensible to himself. The maid was already gone by then in search of help, as the doctor had given up on Naren Babu and asked the maid to inform the people in the municipality for the final rites for her master." Mr. Sen pauses for a quick look-around just to make sure that all in the class are attentive before continuing.

"He won't last another night," said the doctor as he, putting the stethoscope inside, forced his bag shut and proceeded to the door. Standing at the door, Maya, the maid, wiped her eyes with the edge of her sari. Naren Babu went on hallucinating. But what Maya didn't know was the complaint being put forward to his Maker by Naren Babu then, in his last hour. 'Zhy... zhat... ash... my... shshshhhhhh? (Why? What was my fault, my mistake? Did I not live a righteous life, to the best of my abilities?)'

Naren Chatterjee was born into a reputed family in Bengal. His father, Dr. Smaran Chatterjee, was a professor at Chaitanydham College. An honest and amicable man, he took it upon himself to bring his only child up since his wife died at childbirth. Naren learnt the best values from his father. He learnt honesty, truthfulness, sympathy, empathy, understanding, fellow-feeling, and a lot more from his father quite early in life.

Though from a middle-class background, Naren turned out to be a brilliant student quite early in life. His teachers thought the world of him. It was no wonder, therefore, when he produced the best result from the district and passed the Board Examinations, ranked seventh overall.

Besides his academic excellence, the other thing that separated him from the rest of his friends was his practice of and adherence to most of the qualities that he had learnt from his father down to a T.

Sanjeeb wouldn't have been beaten like hell by the school authorities if Naren had preferred to keep quiet like the rest of the class. But it was Naren who blurted out Sanjeeb's name when the Maths teacher was shouting at the top of his lungs, asking for the name of the miscreant. Everyone kept quiet when he asked them who had aimed the paper ball at the top of his (bald) head from behind while he was doing the board work.

The class boycotted Naren for two days after he had stood up to point a finger in Sanjeeb's direction to give him away. He later told some friends that he was doing it for the good of Sanjeeb. Would it be nice if Sanjeeb remained a coward, a liar, a law-breaker for the rest of his life?

Such incidents occurred in his life, on and off, till the last moment when he was bedridden, suffering from a terminal disease, in unbearable pain.

He was studying in class nine at that time. That day, there was a wedding at their home. Many relatives had come a day or two earlier. Amidst all the hustle and bustle at his ancestral home, as Naren was suffocating for space, he decided to go up to the roof of their three-storied building. It was while he was tiptoeing past the attic that he saw, in the moonlight, the shadowy figures of Prakash Da, a distant relative, and Ratnadi in a bear hug.

Ratnadi's shame was unfathomable as she ran out of the living room when Naren spilled the beans about what he felt had transpired between Prakash Da and her.

Ratnadi was married off soon afterwards, and Naren never met her again. When Prakash Da told him after years that he shouldn't have disclosed their friendly embrace to all and sundry so naively that wedding night, Naren couldn't help quipping:

"What's that? A friendly embrace? Thank me and your lucky stars, Prakash Da, that I coughed up the truth at that time. I don't know what you two love-smitten people would have done that moonlit night—cooing, smooching one another's lips... like the way you were!"

Naren didn't give a chance to Prakash to defend himself by telling him point-blank that he had done it exclusively for the benefit of both of them. A lady of Ratnadi's standing shouldn't have been held hidingly and hungrily in a 'friendly embrace' in a house packed with people, that too by someone who was like an older brother to her. And Prakash Da shouldn't have taken advantage of such a decent lady! Prakash took to his heels then, as if he felt that the world had already come to an end!

A few years after his marriage, when Prakash was diagnosed with lung cancer, Naren, the seer, remarked: "One who flirts with others' hearts gets the punishment he deserves."

Naren landed a job as a lecturer of a college some forty-three kilometres away from his home after his Master's, having done quite well in his university examinations. Girls were, by then, beginning to fall head over heels in love with this handsome bloke. At 5 feet 9, with a body that would put a model to shame and a face that looked as if sculpted by a Greek artisan, Naren himself was destined to break hearts. And break hearts he did.

Tanima was the sister of a neighbour of Naren. Poor girl, she was just a high school student when she met him on the day of the Saraswati Puja. She lost her heart straight away to this handsome young man who looked like a movie star. The next day, she sent him a letter with her love expressed passionately and poetically. She wrote that she had never 'felt this way about anyone else'. That Narenda was and would remain her first and last love forever.

Naren called on Siddharth, the neighbour-cum-former classmate, outside his house and showed him Tanima's letter! Naren told him that he was doing it thinking about his sister's future only. What he would never know was how his neighbour railed and yelled at his sister in the confines of their ramshackle house once he was back home.

How he called her a disgrace and went to the extent of telling her to go to hell and hang herself. That he couldn't face anyone either at his workplace or in their locality for such a characterless sister.

Naren was on his way back home from college one gloomy afternoon when he ran into someone from Siddharth's locality.

"Have you heard the news, Naren? You remember Tanima, Siddharth's sister, no? Her body was found floating in the Churni river a few days ago! She was a very decent girl. Why she committed such a silly act will remain a mystery...!" the ignorant man wailed.

"Must have been a victim of the malady called love. You know how shameless the girls are nowadays?" Naren replied bluntly.

But the height of everything happened after his marriage. He learnt about his wife's past from her own mouth—an honest confession about a careless mistake of her youth. Did he not make life hell for her from then on? He would take her to some relative's and, against the run of events, make her wish that she was taken in by Mother Earth by talking about her character.

After staying with him for close to a year, Suparna, for that was the name of his wife, having concluded that Naren would never change, went back to her father's and filed for a divorce. Naren lived a lonely life till his last breath.

He considered himself to be a good man and spent a lot on charities. His qualities were many and enviable, but for this only flaw! A flaw that far outweighed all his good qualities. He believed in preaching and practising the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, even to the extent of ruining many lives, without realising it!

Mr. Sen finished reading the concluding part of the story, closed the book, put it back in his bag, before asking the class:

"Before I summarise the story, tell me, for starters, if you would like to be someone like Naren? Why or why not?"

Stories

The Truth Teller