Battar milk

A few days back I happened to read an article in which the author described the various erroneous signboards and menu cards that he (or was it she) had come across. That reminded me of a roadside cool bar/snack bar I had seen which sold ‘Omplate’ and ‘thandar coconut’ and ‘battar milk.’ This is just one part of the comedy of errors. Sitting comfortably in a glass house, I cannot throw stones at others. So I might as well confess my inability in interpreting signboards, even correct ones.

I had once received a forwarded email which said that human brain is so advanced and well-equipped that it does not have to read a whole word to perceive it. It only reads the first and last letter of the word and is smart enough to guess the rest. Wow! -- I thought.  But the brain-owner’s attitude counts a lot here and in some cases this guess work may turn perilous. Once I astounded myself when I read the board on a shop- ‘poison store.’ That’s what happens when you read only the first and last letter of ‘provision.’ Maybe my brain is ‘poisoned’ and not well - ‘provisioned.’

Another misreading incident was when I called a particular tailoring centre in our locality as ‘Hurry up Tailoring’ because that was what the board said. When I was casually mentioning about this centre to a friend (who incidentally is a regular customer there), she burst out laughing and said- “Apt name you have given to the place where you have to constantly go and say- hurry up!” My usually incredulous friend, though half-heartedly, had believed my words. Next day she found me out at work and told me that the board actually reads: “Hurry up: tailoring classes start soon”. I had obviously missed the last three words.

If reading is this bad, can typing be any better? I always knew I am a poor typist. But of course there are some friends of mine who help in keeping my morale high, being worse typists themselves. I recently realised that I have been affected by what may be termed ‘acute typing dyslexia.’ There have always been minor typing mishaps like ‘teh’ for ‘the’, ‘nad’ for ‘and’ and so on. I should have regarded them as initial symptoms of this malady and not neglected them -- for cure is easier at the onset of any disease.