लहर-लहर: समाज में रहने की पहली शर्त ईमानदारी, सड़क पर सही चलना भी इसकी मिसाल

Javed Akhtar says- Driving the car on the left is honesty. The law is that you have to stop when the signal is red, so stopping when the signal is red is honesty. – file photo

There are two types of animals in the world – one which lives alone like leopard and jaguar. There are some other animals, who live in groups. They cannot live alone; They have to stay in the group only. Man is also an animal who has to live in a group.

Now how will so many people live together? So we will have to agree that we will not deceive each other, we will not tell each other anything which is not true. If we make a promise to each other, we will keep it. If someone does us a favor, we will thank him and if possible, we will also do him some good.

What is honesty? When you drive a car on the road, there is a law in India that you will drive on the left. Driving the car on the left is honesty. The law is that you have to stop when the signal is red, so stopping when the signal is red is honesty.

Now if you do not do this honestly, your car will get damaged or you will hurt someone else or there will be a traffic jam. The traffic jams seen in society today are due to dishonesty and every person suffers loss due to it. So honesty is the first condition to live comfortably, to live in peace and tranquility.

I write in Urdu. The dialogues in the script were written in Urdu script, while the rest of the narration was in English, which we used to dictate. Salim Sahab and I did not know how to type. A Sardar ji used to type it for us, but people in the unit like Ramesh Sippy Sahab and other members wanted the script in Hindi. Khalid Sahab was an assistant of Ramesh Sippy Sahab.

I had given him the responsibility to write the dialogues written in Urdu script in Devanagari and send them to the producer and director. Khalid Saheb was a very decent, quiet and shy person. As time passed, he grew old and retired. He also stopped getting salary from Sippy Films. So I started sending him some money every month. His death was discovered later.

I knew that he had a wife and children, so I started sending the same amount to his wife. His son used to come every month to collect money and give it to his mother. This was confirmed by our well-wisher Haroon Saheb, who was in touch with the family. So one day that son came who must have been above 30 years of age. He said, Sir, stop sending money from next month.

My mother has passed away. It would be wrong to take your money now. Well, that son was neither very rich nor in any big job or big business. Seeing his honesty, I was happy, surprised and relieved. I was very infatuated with that man. So it is not that there is no decency, goodness and honesty left in the world.

Honesty is a necessity for humans to remain safe. And the first honesty you see is in your mother. She performs whatever duties a mother has towards the child. It is a different matter if a mother is mad, otherwise she does not behave dishonestly with the child.

When you are born in society, the first person with whom you are introduced and because of whom you come into this world, is your mother. And that mother is honest with you. That means, the first lesson you get from your mother is honesty. Now you should think for yourself from where you learned the lessons of dishonesty later.

(Editing and Coordination- Arvind Mandaloi)