An Ethical Dilemma

Please describe an ethical dilemma you have experienced firsthand. How did you manage the situation?

Ethics are the moral foundation of one’s character.  For me they are a collection of principles and value that construct my being - unbending and unabated by the circumstances.

When I was at high school Sanskrit language was part of our curriculum. Sanskrit is one of the most ancient literary and scholarly languages on earth and is the origin of most Asian languages. Because of its ancient forms, tricky construction of sentences and versatile forms of verbs and nouns it is difficult to learn and mastering it in a curriculum of six months, as we had had in our school, made it even more difficult.

It was half an hour to the completion of our Sanskrit annual examination and I was done with most of the questions ; I was struck one single question which I could not remember properly. We were asked to write different word-forms (called as “Shabd Roop” in Sanskrit) of a noun. In Sanskrit there are 21 word-forms for each noun and I couldn’t remember all the forms of the noun which was asked in the question. One of my classmates seating in the previous row was cheating and when the invigilator passed by he threw the cheat-paper and incidentally it landed under my shoes. When I looked down I saw it was the same question that I was not able to answer correctly. I couldn’t kick it away because if the invigilator found it he would surely had cancelled the paper of one of my classmates beside whom the piece of paper might have slipped. There was another chance : the invigilator could find it in its current  position and cancel my paper. For a second I thought that to pick the paper up, finish the question, and then keep it in my pocket - which would solve all the problems. But that would be cheating on my long-constructed values. So I kept the piece of paper pressed under my shoes till the exam was over.

When the results were out I got less marks in Sanskrit paper, but still managed to top the class. I was extremely happy not because of the results but because of the choice I made during the examination. If I cheated that day I might have scored some marks more, but my decision was a triumph of my hard-work and spirit over a flickering desire. This incident taught me to make my choices and stand tall even when the situations are worse.