The White Bearded Chief and his deputy, the Bald Round Head, walked solemnly towards the edge of the village.

“We have a serious problem,” whispered the Chief.

“I know,” said the Deputy. “Your latest talk to the nation had hardly any listeners. Heard you are blaming the teleprompter!”

“Not that problem,” snapped the Chief. “The cockroaches are winning!”

The Deputy looked around nervously. The village had employed the finest pest controllers money, influence and frightened businessmen could provide. Every wall had been sprayed. Every newspaper had announced that there were no cockroaches. Every village television channel showed pictures of spotless kitchens while cockroaches danced behind the newsreaders.

“How can they be winning?” cried the Deputy. “We crushed the intellectual cockroaches first!”

“Yes,” said the Chief proudly. “Professors, writers, students and journalists. Very dangerous creatures. They ask questions.”

“We raided their nests.”

“We cancelled their lectures.”

“We even called them foreign funded cockroaches!”

The two men smiled at the brilliance of their pest control.

“And the opposition cockroach?” asked the Chief.

“We named him Pappu,” chuckled the Deputy. “Every time he spoke, our people laughed before hearing what he said.”

“Excellent strategy.”

“It was,” sighed the Deputy, “until people started listening.”

The Chief stopped walking.

“Listening?”

“Yes, Chief. A most unhealthy village habit.”

They continued towards the village boundary. Everywhere they looked, cockroaches were emerging. Student cockroaches crawled out from examination halls. Farmer cockroaches came from fields. Unemployed cockroaches poured from employment offices carrying appointment letters that had never arrived.

“But we rubbished their reports!” protested the Chief.

“We did better,” said the Deputy. “We called every report a lie and replaced it with our own.”

“And did the village believe us?”

“Certainly. Our village channels believed us completely.”

“What about the villagers?”

The Deputy studied his round reflection on a brass plate.

“They have started believing their empty stomachs.”

The Chief frowned. “Then tell them their hunger is an international conspiracy.”

“We already have.”

“And corruption?”

“A clerical error.”

“Unemployment?”

“A spiritual opportunity.”

“Protests?”

“Anti-village activity.”

Suddenly, two cockroaches climbed onto a rock. One opened its tiny arms dramatically and hugged the other. Then the second hugged a tree, a stone and an astonished goat.

“Look out!” cried the Bald Deputy. “They are imitating your hugs!”

The Chief raised his arms to demonstrate the authentic embrace, but hundreds of cockroaches climbed up his robes. More scrambled over the Deputy’s shining head.

“Spray them!” screamed the Chief.

“We have used all the spray,” wailed the Deputy.

“Then use truth!”

The Deputy stared at him in horror.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” said White Beard, “but I heard that’s what the cockroaches are spraying themselves with and winning against us!”

And while the cockroaches marched victoriously into the village, the White Bearded Chief and the Bald Round Head sat beneath a tree, hurriedly turning the pages of a dictionary to find out what the word ‘truth’ meant…!

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