Every man is bestowed with an unique talent. Beethoven's music, Picasso's paintings, Shakespeare's words, Newton's laws of gravity and Michael Jackson's ways of defying gravity on the dance floor are evidence that rigorous practice evolves that talent, into genius. History embraces them as men the world has known and cherished. However, there are few more, who still lay hidden from recognition. Their talent, lay undiscovered. I know of such a great figure, who over the years, with her immense bravery protested order and by so doing, has perfected her art. It is her contribution that will one day enable language to break its petty boundaries and focus on concerns more grave. She is, me. My genius, is my creativity with spellings.I first held a pen when I was two years old. I had lifted it from my dad's pocket and scribbled all over his shoulder. My mother had given up on the stains after trying three different brands of washing powder. That was my first encounter with writing. Later, when I began schooling, my notebooks held millions of wobbly letters, etched into their pages with stubby pencils. My pencil box had particular enmity towards erasers. It just refused to contain them. So I was forced to either loose them, cut them into pieces with a ruler, barter them for marbles or simply eat them up. I apologize for my grotesque humor, but I confess, I had a knack of biting into erasers, specially the ones that came in shapes and had a kind of sweet fragrance.
No erasers, meant no erasing of misplaced letters. I let my letters be where they felt most comfortable and slowly it grew on me as a habit. It had its advantage. It saved me time. Among all my classmates, I was always the first one to submit my classwork. My classwork was always neat when I submitted them. However to my despair, they came back, smacked red across their faces. No matter how hard my mother made me practice, I could never bring her laurels from any dictation test.
It amazed me when my teacher and my mother, made such a huge fuss over spellings. I mean, if I wrote "I will see you tomorrow" as "I will see you tommorow" they would still know what I am wanting to say. There was absolutely no need to enamor my 'tommorow' with a red circle and strike out marks.
I believe, everyone must be given the freedom to spell a word as they desire. It is my 'accomodate". I should be the one who decides whether or not it should accommodate an extra 'm' and it is me who should be allowed to decide whether it is 'acceptible' or 'acceptable' to me. After all, who decides what is the right way to write a word? You may say, tradition. In that case, when the tradition of Sati could be abolished, Slavery could be abolished, isn't it easy enough to make a minuscule reformation as this?
In my later years at school, my teachers would yell from behind the desk, "This girl got atrocious spellings". Some of them joked that I should sponsor balm for their headaches. My friends sniggered while they borrowed my notebooks. They had experienced me so much that they could have written an essay in my honour, and title it "The Tragedy of miss spelling." I would have grinned and clapped modestly, while they would have received, the Pulitzer for it.
Throughout the three years of my graduation, my professors have lifted marks for my spellings.
It is my record, that till date, I have not been able to unveil the mystery behind all the hullabaloo over right spellings. Also, I have never managed one composition without signing it with what, you might call, mistakes and I might call, my signature spellings.
This is a cruel world. I have to hide my creative spellings under the cloak of typing error while chatting online. While blogging, Blogger's spell check, wipes all my creativity.
This is a photograph of my recent achievement. A test paper from a course in Linguistics itself.
"Good, Better, Best,
Never let yourself rest,
Till your Good is Better,
and your Better, Best."
