This isn't not funny

I went out of Bangaluru sometime back and had parked my vehicle at the railway station. The parking coupon had this written (the pic herein), I generally read anything more than two times…don’t know whether I should write this, I am quite a terrible reader (my job is just the opposite, I always found that exceedingly funny), last decade and half I seem to have a control over it and can read quite fast.

I had actually missed it at the first instance on a closer look it read “surrender the coupon before living”. That made me smile…yah I also consider traveling as “living”, staying inside “dying”. But somehow it didn’t make me laugh, spelling mistakes are quite common and I consider it as elemental mistake in English language itself. A word should be written as it sounds and not as someone decided somewhere. Spelling mistakes are nothing funny though it might lead to funny situations. Incidentally in USofA they conduct Spelling Competitions at national level and make TV programs out of it. Shocking. Macaques from India tend to do well in these nitty-gritty (very much pushed by retarded parents) and in India it falls into “making the country proud” category and so given much prominence.

I recall ears being twisted over these mistakes millions of time, so I guess I have vested interest in writing this piece but there is something universal in these experiences. These mistakes at primary school level should have relaxations. Dictations are nightmares. I recall when I was in my primary school there used to be regular dictation tests, the school being run by Christian missionary took these matters very seriously. Children who scored less were whacked with sticks. The worst part was getting the result signatured from home. And that is where I got innovative (importantly being punished for the same mistake twice is against natural justice…I got that from Andha kanoon movie later where Amitabh Bachchan makes that impassionate speech before the judge!!… ye kaisa kanoon hai melord... I thought it was a terrific scene and we used to play it out in school) since mom was not into English and her signature was easy to copy I forged. And so had two notebooks one hidden in school another rewritten for home, it was a hectic nerve racking deceit. Double life!!. As for ear twisting, better part of my effort before these tortures went into transferring oil from hair to ear (indeed i would get into the act even before the test started!!), that made it slippery and difficult to hold!

English really was quite a tough beginning but must say it did open a new world, recently internet has added to the excitement. But I still have absolutely no idea about grammar; previously I tried to know now I don’t even think about it. My policy is constant reading will get you into a pattern of correct sentence construction. It seemed to have worked quite well. When I read myself it doesn’t look bad.
So even though I do come across spelling mistakes in hoardings and menu cards so on while traveling across the country I never found it funny, it does make me smile occasionally that’s about it I don’t consider it a big deal.