Lying is in 2 parts – suppressio veri and suggestio falsi. For those not very conversant with law, these are words which may sound like Greek or Latin, well it is!

Suppressio Veri is when you hide the truth, and suggestio falsi is when you actually tell a lie.

Let us put it this way. You are going for a 8am meeting…and the other person calls you at 7.50…you are still about 20 minutes away. What do you do? You say one of the following:

– the train was late

– too much traffic, did not expect to see so much traffic at 7.30am

– cannot find an auto

the real reason could be far far different. Maybe you got up late, maybe you stood talking to a friend, ….

these are suggestio falsi with regard to time.

Here we are talking money!

You are young and just started earning. You like to spend money but your parents are more in the Socialistic mode. What do you do?

Do you tell small lies?

Do you tell your mom that you spent Rs. 5000 for hair straightening? or tell her it was Rs. 1500? Knowing that 1500 will give her a mild heart attack, but at 5k she will die? or tell her that your phone costs Rs. 8000, while you actually paid Rs. 19,000?

these kind of lies are common between generations – why even between spouses! I know of one woman who will die if her husband told her that a purse he has bought for her costs Rs. 34,000. He told her ‘It is very expensive I paid Rs. 5000 for it’ . He actually bought it in Europe….:-). I know a friend who tells his father ‘Dad I get these J class tickets because of my mileage’ – he actually prefers that they fly Kingfisher J class (somebody picks them up as soon as his driver drops them off at the Mumbai airport and they are escorted to his sister in Chennai). His father was a CXO, but cannot accpet the fact that somebody would pay a 30% premium just to sit in the front seats!

I also know of kids lying to parents – so that parents do not ask for more money. I speak to a lot of people about money – and have heard about one mother who keeps telling her son ‘we have sacrificed so much for you…so now you need to spend on us’. This i hear is now not too rare. Most people underestimate the financial needs in old age. So if a 65 year old mother is expecting her son to spend lavishly on her – what happens when she is 84 and son is retired? Or when money gets tight?

Also heard of children lying to their parents – so that the parent does not feel ….’my son is doing so well…why does he not help my daughter’….Now funnily if a son is doing better than the daughter, the parent feels that the daughter in law did not deserve it’ – this is a doc’s version (honestly she is not a psycho analyst, but hey she is a gen physician!).

So like time lying, money lying is common too.

On the reverse side there are kids lying to their parents about their struggles too. Imagine earning Rs. 32 k  a month but struggling to pay bills, living pay check to pay check, paying the min for keeping a credit card going…..and also blowing money! Such kids have to tell their parents – I travel by train (auto is the minimum, girl friends can upgrade that to a taxi), my cell phone costs only Rs. 8000 (actual cost Rs. 25000)..just to sound a little responsible.

So when Dad/ Mom calls it is always “I am doing fine dad”. So what if Monday morning financial confessions are at my desk and it deals with:

– bounced cheques, bouncers, marriage loan, housing EMI, car Emi, latest bike costing Rs. 1.8 (sir I am entitled to ATLEAST that much), ……………..and not finding out how the various things are related.

RIP parts of Gen Y. Do not worry, we all do parts of it.