Present Continuous

And how have you all been O faithful readers this lovely summer? The Man from Madras Musings trusts that you are all basking in the sunshine and working on that tan which makes all the difference. Besides, there is also the Vitamin D benefit that you need to factor in. And so, get on with the deck chair, the suntan lotion and the Marina beach my dears!

At his end, MMM is working hard as usual. He had his review meeting on the old magazine with Madam Editor and the Lord God who oversees everything, and they agreed that all is swimmingly well except for this tendency of MMM to go after those in power every once in a while. These days said Madam Editor, the politico bite is worse than their bark and MMM would do well to tone it down. The meeting over, MMM emerged a new man, full of resolve to work with the political masters. And opportunity was not slow in coming.

The party in power has completed four years in office and advertisements were released on the front page of all dailies. You, dear reader, may have also noticed them. MMM did, and the first thing that struck his eye was the headline which said, “Four Years of Appreciated Governance, Let It Continues For Many Years”. The strained nature of the first sentence apart, it was the ‘Continues’ in the second which grabbed MMM’s attention. He decided that this was where he worked on Madam Editor’s do-good maxim and immediately X’d (formerly MMM would have said tweeted) the lines, tagging the State Govt and also the Hon CM to the effect that they would have done better getting someone to proofread the ads before release.

The Hon.CM and the Govt. did not seem to care but plenty of others did. MMM received several messages, the most common being of the cynical well what did you expect sort. Some others were plain abusive – cursing the powers that are and also the newspaper that carried the ad and these MMM ignored. It was the third variety that stunned MMM – they wanted to know what exactly was wrong with the line. And before you run away saying MMM is an elitist language nazi who makes fun of the less privileged let him assure you that these are all of the top strata who seem to live on X (formerly you know what).

Some samples:

‘Kindly refer CONTINUES is right only. CONTINUOUS and CONTINUES both having different meaning.’

‘You check your English. CONTINUES is present tense. CONTINUE is past.’

What however proved even more interesting were the online battles this post of MMM spawned. People fought like cats and dogs and soon the original goof was forgotten in the light of personal abuse. MMM, who after striking the match so to speak was not involved, had a good time reading all these posts and laughing at the bigger grammatical errors in those.

Straight out of Harry Potter

The Man from Madras Musings, as many of the faithful among his flock will know, resided for long in what was a bustling commercial area. That it had once been a quiet, residential space could only be marvelled at, with MMM’s house being the sole reminder of such an era. But then, there came a time when MMM had to move. The hunt for land to build a house on in a quiet locality was spearheaded by MMM’s good lady, also known as She Who Must Be Obeyed and there came a day when she was successful. A new house was ready sometime thereafter, and MMM made the move. That was six years ago. My, how time flies writing this column!

The new home is exactly as MMM would have wished but for the narrow entrance to the street. It is just by a large multi-storey building and can easily be missed. As a consequence, delivery boys have a tough task finding the street and after a while begin calling MMM on the phone asking as to where it is. To avoid this MMM began specifying the large building as landmark when it came to address details. This did help but not always. In one incident, the delivery boy misunderstood the building to be MMM’s residence and was confused that it had several MMM namesakes working in it. It was only after a while, and the package having been refused by many, that he realised that MMM lived close to, and not in, that landmark building.

But it is the variety of delivery boy who insists that MMM’s street does not exist at all that draws MMM’s ire. Thus it was last week that an organisation that specialises in the King’s English wanted to send something to MMM and got one of its executives (and not a delivery boy) to drop it off. And sure enough, the young man had to call, to ask as to where the street was. MMM explained that it was next to the building specified as the landmark. The man rung off and after a while was again on the phone.

“Sir, I am standing next to the building you specify but there is no street by its side.”

MMM – “Are you sure? Have you looked properly?”

“Yes sir. I am standing in front of the building you mention and there is no street. Are you sure there is a street there?”

It was MMM’s turn to have doubts. Was his street really there? Was he there? And then brushing aside such existential doubts he decided to be heavily sarcastic –

“I must be mistaken. I have lived here only for six years and so it is likely I may have had illusions of some kind.”

The man was puzzled. He also had a vague idea that his leg was being pulled, and this was confirmed when MMM asked him if he read/saw Harry Potter and was aware of the secret railway platform.

But the happy ending was in sight. He had located the street said the man – it was to his right as he faced the building when all along he was looking to the right of the building. On that happy note the package was delivered and all was well.

– MMM