Our tendency to exaggerate...

 I have spent many long hours thinking of what more I can write about. After much consideration, I have come to the conclusion that my fascination lies in the art of exaggeration. 

Exaggeration is frowned upon by many. Yet, you cannot deny the fact that as long as someone exaggerates and still manages to make others believe in him, it remains an art. Technically, the word "exaggeration" means to say or present something to others with far more intensity that it supposedly has. To say that 2019 was good would be the truth. Claiming that 2020 was good, however, would be an exaggeration. A far fetched one too, if I may add.

Exaggeration and drama go hand in hand. They come together, part and parcel. For example, all the serials that we as malayalees see, are actually exaggerations of what could have been the reality. They're enhanced. Over enhanced. And people love this exaggeration too, which explains the financial uplifting that the serial industry offers to people who come hither.

Both drama and exaggeration have got the same flair to it. If presented in the right way, you can easily con someone else into thinking that the idea you draw before them might possibly be the truth. However, when done wrongly, all hell can break loose. Everything around you can go haywire. 

As I look back upon the past fruitful eighteen years of my life (I say this with sarcasm dripping out of my mouth with the viscousity of sweet sweet honey, of course), I must say that exaggeration has got me neck deep into numerous troubles and embarrassment. For example, there was this one time about four years ago, when our English teacher was talking about the twin tower attack, commonly known as the 9/11, that took place in the U.S. Sir asked us if any of us had "seen it". Me, being stupendously idiotic and oblivious about the whole situation (and the fact that this took place in America), stood up and said that I had. To be fair, I thought this took place in Dubai, which is also a place that houses a set of twin towers. I had been to Dubai before, so I thought that what I had put forward was a pretty believable case. I even went to the extend so as to say that I was there in front of the said buildings when this historical disaster had taken place. What was I to gain by this? I still do not know; but to this day, I regret opening my mouth. For in the next very minute, after asking a whole bunch of details about what I had witnessed, my teacher proclaimed with a funny smile on his face, that this had happened in 2002, which was 2 years before I was born. I stood there stunned whilst the class erupted with laughter. My mind had shut off and my brain took a quick reboot. The color in my cheeks drained and then returned to exhibit an extremely dark shade of velvet red. My brain, desperate, tried to resort to finding a way around the mess I had dragged myself mercilessly into. The prospect of embarrassment was so painful to me back in the day that I even contemplated telling them that I was one of the people who died in 9/11 and was reborn two years later thanks to the prayers of my mother dearest. Now, I remain in eternal gratitude to my common sense, that I didnt. As the color continued to drain out of my face and come back right up (making my cheeks look like a pair of christmas bulbs that chose to abstain off buttons), I suddenly found the ground so fascinating that I continued to stare through it so as to make a hole in it and jump through that hole and fall into the earth for ever. Hubris. It was hubris that had been my downfall. If I had been superman, I think I probably would have cut through our planet with the intensity at which I kept staring at the ground. I am deeply troubled to say that these gory details still continue to haunt every single night of my life.

People do not necessarily exaggerate because they want to boast. It can also happen involuntarily. People who talk more about themselves, or the materials and whatnot that they own, may not be having as much friends as you think they do. It is their mechanism of coping with the fact that they do not have many friendships. It is a reflection of their desperate attempts to make friends. People who talk less about themselves, however, may have inferiority complexes. People who exaggerate about others may want to make you see the other person in their point of view, whether in a good way or in a bad way is upto how they present it to you. 

In fact, every behaviour in man has certain explanations to certain aspects within himself that he lets out unbeknownst to himself and others. Every flaw in man is actually a peephole into his mind and intellect. 

As I was saying, the aspect of exaggeration is one that presents itself with high risks attached. But it can be fun too. In light of this new intel, analyse my article at your ease. I will not be surprised to hear that you will discover that almost every single sentence that I have posted in this article contains extreme levels of exaggeration.