How my daughter schooled me for integrity!

This is embarrassing as a person.

BUT…

This is a super proud moment for a father!

My daughter, like so many young boys and girls, is giving her first round of online exams. It’s fun, challenging, demanding, exhausting and interesting.

And on Monday, she had her Urdu exam. URDU is a nightmare subject for many kids these days. Primarily because parents are too obsessed with English, the media of their choice is in English and Urdu is restricted to just one class now.

Anyways, that’s a different topic, for some other day.

So, while she hustled through her preparation, my wife asked her to write an essay on “My Best Friend”. She, being a brilliant writer [she inspires me] started her essay with absolute clarity. As she started writing about her friends’ favorite animal, that’s where the integrity lesson happened.

Her friends’ favorite animal is “Rabbit — Khargosh — خرگوش”

And she was struggling to write خرگوش.

I, with my habitual problem-solving stance, jumped in and said… “Diya, it’s just an exam. Write cat — بلی or dog — کُتا as it’s easier to write and your teacher won’t go to your friend to confirm it.

My daughter, without blinking her eye looked at me and said — “but I know what my friend likes, and I can’t change it for my convenience. That’s not fair.”

Thank you, Diya, for this crash course in Integrity.

Doing the right thing is not convenient, but then — it’s the right thing to do.

She gives so much of meaning to my life. I love her!