Little White Lies

This is the story of a lie that earned me my mother’s most unique punishment. And I’ll introduce you to a doctor who used a little white lie to save generations of priceless artworks.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Today's stories about Is for Me, some pocket change, and
how our brave doctor saved an entire country's artwork. It's
also about me your host an open care. But mostly
it's about making your smile welcome to an open cares.
Chapter six Little White Lies. Today, I want to take

(00:37):
you back to fourth grade, when I attended a little
school in Simla named Lady Irvan Primary School. One afternoon,
our teacher informed us that something special was happening the
next day. Is for Me was coming to visit the
school to pesto his blessings on us. And while this
might sound a little odd in America, in Shimla, we

(00:59):
were happy to welcome the stormy to school and receive
all the blessings we could get. Of course, as she
told us about the event, our teacher reminded us that
we should have something ready to offer the stormy as
it thank you for the Duson that evening, I told
my mother about the big news. She knew just what

(01:20):
to do. She heard it to collect some change and
brought me five best basically the Indian equivalent of five
pennies to offer the stormy. Five, as you might know,
is an auspicious number. My mother thought maybe maybe it
will help my bid to secure a more favorable blessing.
It was a big maybe. Next day at school, there

(01:47):
was lots of excitement as we gathered in the schoolyard
waiting for the swammy. But once he had arrived and
we cued up for our blessings, I noticed something peculiar, Irishman.
Not everyone was giving money to the Holy Man. Some

(02:07):
of course, we're dutifly thanking him and handing over their coins,
but others seem to be accepting the blessings and nothing.
If they had money, it stayed in their pockets. What
was even more interesting to me was that they were
not being punished. Suddenly I was inspired, and the smile

(02:32):
slowly worked its way across my face. When you were
a kid and you've got a bit of pocket change
in your hands, you start thinking about the possibilities. And yes,
as I licked my lips thinking about all the different
types of penny candies I could buy with this money,
I remember curling my fingers around those coins and gripping

(02:53):
them tight. When is the next time I will have
five pass? I asked myself, Maybe these pessa are my blessing.
That day Instead of handing the for me the money
my mother had given me, I chose to spend it
on myself. I used tupasa to buy some delicious sweets

(03:14):
and then tucked the remaining three passa into my school
bag where no one would find it, Or so I thought.
That afternoon started out the way it always did, with
my mother asking us to sit and finish our homework.
Like any good Indian mother, she liked to keep me

(03:35):
and my brother on task. But it wasn't long before
I had made an error. As I fumbled through my pockets,
looking in vain for my erazor, my mother came over
to help. She quickly turned my bag upside down and
shook it a few times, and before I could react,
I watched as those three face are rolled out. The

(04:01):
room went silent. She looked at me, I stayed back
at her. Then we both slowly looked down at the
three paces. Mm hmmm mmm the two. Where did you
get this money from? She demanded, stammering, I answered, somebody.

(04:25):
Somebody must have put it there. Why should anyone put
three paces in your bag? She asked, sternly, How would
I know? Are you sure? She asked? This time a
little more threatening, lee, I doubled down. Yes, yes, I said,
with a little more confidence. I don't know who put
it there. Then she said, calmly, okay, because you won't

(04:48):
tell me, I will have to teach you a lesson.
I don't know how it happens so quickly. In an instant,
she's somehow pulled off all my clothes and kicked outside.
I was literally stark naked, and as the door slammed
locked behind me, the last thing I heard was her yell, fine,

(05:09):
suppose and you remember how this money got into your bag.
Only then you can enter this house again. It's amazing
how quickly a nine year olds memory can be jogged
when he's standing outside naked. As neighbors passed by, holding

(05:31):
back their laugh a little bit too, and the girls
on my street openly laughed, pointing their fingers and giggling.
I stood over my predicament and debated my choices. If
I had known how my mother was going to react,
I would have told the truth. But now that I
had told a lie, I was committed. Oh. I can't

(05:57):
tell you how long that they felt. Afternoons slowly settled
into the evening, the sun eventually went down, and my
father came back from office. He was horrifying to find
me outside naked. As he approached the door, he yelled
at my mother open up and let us in, but

(06:17):
it was evident her anger hadn't diminished. From the other
side of the door, she fired back, you want to
let him in. If that's what you want, you can
stay outside too. My father turned to me bewildered. Then
he said, the only way we can solve this problem
is if you tell me the real story, otherwise we
will both be stuck out here all night. Let's have

(06:39):
the truth. I bent my head and revealed everything. Then
he asked me, but why didn't you tell this to
your mother? Why didn't you tell her that the other
kids too didn't give offerings, so you spent two pasa
because because I would have got a thrashing, I confessed.

(07:01):
My poor father tried to make my case. Picture the scene,
my mother arms akimbo blocking the doorway, my father using
all his persuasive skills from the other side of the doorframe,
desperately pleading my side, and me cowering behind him, still
very naked. It took a while, but then the angry

(07:24):
judge offered a simple deal. My father and I were
allowed to slink back into the house on the condition
that my mother still had a lesson to teach me.
Her punishment was swift. As we filed in the door,
she plucked a dreaded bitchu booty from the ground, or
a stinging nettle, you might call it, and in a
single motion, she slapped it against my naked bottom. It

(07:49):
was a different time now, listeners For the next three days,
my mom wasn't just so. It was itchy two, and
while I dared not scratch it in front of others,
I ashumiliated. In that instant, I wondered, how could my
mother do this to her own son. Why such a

(08:12):
harsh punishment for such a tiny sum of money. But
it wasn't long before I figured it out. My mother's
point was, it doesn't matter how small a lie is.
The fact is there is no such thing as a
small lie. My mother is an unfailingly honest woman. She

(08:34):
wanted to raison on his son, and that's something I
work every day to live up to. Of course, there
are sometimes when a little bit of deception can be useful,
and that is the case with Mohammed Yusuf. Safety doctor,

(08:57):
an artist and a hero from Afghanist that if you
ever seen old photos of Afghanistan, you might know the
Buddhas of Bamian. For sevent hundred years they stood as
one of the country's great cultural sites, nestled by the
Hindu Kush mountains, Towering at hundred and seventy feet tall,

(09:20):
they were a thing of beauty and they sparked the
imaginations of millennia. And then March twenty one, the Taliban
militants placed explosive charges around the two statues and reduced
them to piles of rubble. The history of Bamian has

(09:43):
been destroyed. Remains today of the Bamiyan Buddhas or bacon
niches in the mountain side the symbol of the Taliban's
in tolerance and proved oppression. The turn of the millennia
was a difficult time in Afghanistan. A few years earlier,
the Taliban had rated the presidential palace, killed the former president,

(10:04):
and taken control of the country's come. One of their
first edicts was to impose an old Islamic rule that
forbade the depiction of any living thing in a work
of art. The Taliban set about destroying ancient and modern
artwork that defied this rule. The Bamyan Buddhas, of course,
would become their most notable victim and would be mourned

(10:27):
by the world over. But the Taliban also burned and
slashed hundreds upon hundreds of paintings simply because they depicted
something as harmless as a duck or a donkey. It
was then the doctor Mohammed Yusufa safely new he had

(10:47):
to take action. Mohammed was a medical doctor and internist
working at a hospital in Kaboon, but he also moonlighted
as one of the country's most well known and widely
respected painters. His works, which depicted traditional Afghani life, had
won him favor with some of the most important figures

(11:07):
in the old government. In fact, dozens of his pieces
hung in Afghanistan's presidential palace, and when the Taliban raided
the building, his paintings were among the first to be destroyed.
Mohamed had seen a lost strife in his lifetime. At
one point in missile had torn through his family home
while they were still inside, But to Mohammed the ordeal

(11:31):
was nothing compared to the slow destruction of Afghanistan's art.
It really affected me psychologically, he would later say, I
couldn't cope with it. As he told the New York Times,
they were determined to destroy the culture of Afghanistan. So
I started to think about what I could do. Thankfully,

(11:52):
Mohammad had a devilished little trick up his sleeve. He
went to the Foreign Ministry and told the Taliban officials
there that he needed to repair some of the paintings.
He removed all of the works that contained a living
creature in them, grabbed his brush and began dabbing with
watercolor paint. Where there used to be a dog, A
wheelbarrow emerged where there was once a man, when a

(12:15):
walk there was suddenly a giant flower pot. Ducks and
swans disappeared into the lakes they had been swimming in.
Mohammed painted over every living creature you could find. After
making his alterations, Mohammed returned the paintings to the Foreign Ministry.
When a skeptical Taliban official asked him what he was

(12:36):
up to, he replied that he was merely redecorating. Thankfully,
they bought the lie those paintings would survive. According to Mohammad,
the Taliban never looked at the artwork closely enough to
notice the alterations. These people, after all, weren't art lovers,

(12:56):
as he later said, They just looked at the pictures
and if they saw a living creature, they put it
on a list to be destroyed. It was an incredible risk.
If he had been caught, Mohammed could have at best
lost his license to practice medicine, and at the worst,
he could have lost his life, but that never stopped him.

(13:20):
After painting over every human and animal he could get
his hands on at the Foreign Ministry, Mohammed moved on
to Afghanistan's National Gallery of Art. There he took about
eighty pieces of art and once again altered them with
his watercolor talents. The most amazing thing about this story, though,

(13:41):
isn't how Mohammed was able to successfully pull off a
literal cover up. It's the fact that, well, the watercolor
can be wiped off, and when the Taliban's rule ended
in the early two thousands, that's exactly what Mohammed did.
It took the hundred and twenty plus painting that he
had painted over and began carefully wiping them down with

(14:03):
a wet sponge. Crowds watched in awe as those wheelbarrows
turned into docks, flower pots became people walking, and empty
streams and lakes suddenly revealed swans and ducks. The New
York Times put the situation most beautifully. Culture did not

(14:26):
seize in Afghanistan during the reign of Taliban. It merely
went underground, and moment Well, he did more than just
save it. This little white lines helped bring culture back
into the light. That's it for today's episode. I'm apum care,

(14:51):
be kind to yourself, and thank you for listening. No
pump Cares is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host a pump Care. Our executive producer is mangis
Ha Jenior producer Julian Weller, Associate producer Morgan Lavoy. Sound

(15:18):
design and mixing by Julian Weller and Dan Pausa. Music
by Aaron Kauffman. Production support from Emily Maronov and Married
You You. Writing by Lucas Riley, Matt Riddle, Margon Lavoy
and Julian Weller. Lucas Riley and Matt Riddle are our
story editors. Thanks to Skin Paru Hermandy Suza, Godwin Amana,

(15:42):
Sidium Studios, Donald Byrne and poppet shut