Our villager chose the second option. He claimed with all the vehemence at his command that he could see God and even talk to Him. He made a great show of devotion to the charlatan and made him his guru and savior, giving offerings and showing respect every day.
After a couple of days, when this matter became the talk of the village, a second villager fell into the same trap. He thought why not I see the God too. He had his nose cut by the first “nose-less” villager. He could see nothing. But the charlatan and the first “nose-less” one were looking at him expectantly. He now had the same choice as the first one. He too chose to live the lie for the rest of his life.
Over time, a majority of villagers were converted and their noses were removed, and they started living the lie that they were able to see God. As the lie they were living took deeper hold of their lives, they took to mocking those who refused to deform themselves in the hope of something they suspected was impossible. The “nosey” lot rather chose the path of checking everything rigorously before accepting it as truth. Over time, they developed the Scientific Method and made technological advances.
The nose-less lot then made rules that no one could question the fact of God being visible to them. If anyone did, either within the nose-less community, or anyone outside, he or she would be killed. They also deified the charlatan who, long dead now, had started the whole business of nose cutting. Any criticism or mocking of the charlatan threw the nose-less lot into uncontrollable rage. The more rational nosies sometimes applied their scientific reasoning to argue that there was no way God could become visible by cutting the nose. Each such instance resulted in rioting and arson, to a point when it took extraordinary courage on anyone's part to rake up the matter.
Over centuries, the original lie became part of the genetic code of the nose-less ones' culture. Very few amongst them dared to apostasize. The nosey ones either did not bother or, when the nose-less committed acts of violence to re-assert that they could see God, took to claiming that the faith of the nose-less was benign, and only a tiny minority of extremists amongst them indulged in violence.
In such a world, one person, out of hatred for nose-less lot (since he had lived in a country of nose-less ones where his kind were hopelessly outnumbered and, therefore, regularly abused), made a crude movie showing the original act of the charlatan when he fooled the first lot of nose-less ones into cutting their noses. Facing truth they had avoided for all their lives, and indeed generations, was impossible for the nose-less. But letting the filmmaker get away with this act of defiance would tantamount to admitting that indeed their ancestors had been fooled into cutting their noses. So they felt the need to silence the filmmaker. Now there was problem. The filmmaker lived in a powerful country of “nosey” people. This powerful country had no law binding people not to tell the truth about the charlatan. So the rage of the nose-less found outlets in acts of violence against all symbols of the powerful nosey country – flags, effigies, embassy buildings, and in one case, an ambassador and his companions.
As of the time of writing, the rage shows no sign of abetting. Moreover, trouble may be expected even after the violence abates. Because some “nosey” person will again rake up the charlatanry of the charlatan. Maybe this time, the re-creation of history may be artistic, authentic and interesting. Nose-less ones can be seen to be mortally afraid of that. After having run away from the truth for centuries, they are finding it increasingly hard to avoid it. This writer believes that there will be a major fight between the nose-less and the nosey before the truth finally prevails.
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