Md. Kamal Uddin Dear Rose Flower, I lost Tinkul—now it’s like Khalkul! I make mistakes while writing. There is no exact statistics on how many mistakes I have made in my life. If I open the book of mistakes, maybe another life will be less. Still, one thing can be said firmly—even if mistakes are made in everything, it will never be possible to write mistakes as correct spelling. That would be the biggest mistake.
As a child, I used to see a sentence repeatedly in the Bengali grammar section of the matriculation exam test paper—“Mal-spelling, ma-mhal-kario na.” That saying is still etched in my mind. Because, forgetting and making mistakes are not the same thing. People forget because of memory, and make mistakes because of carelessness. How many strange mistakes do we make! Sometimes we write the wrong address of a letter, and then we forget to put the letter with that wrong address in the mailbox. I remember a saying by H. G. Wells—the easiest way to attract people’s attention is to make a good mistake. Maybe that’s why many businessmen intentionally put misspellings on their signboards. People forget the name of the shop, but they can’t forget that strange mistake. Just imagine, if a ghee shop had a sign—“Here you can find pure ghee.” Even though I laughed at the spelling, the shop’s name stayed in my mind! The stories of Shivaram Chakraborty, the humorous emperor of Bengali literature, about mistakes, are still indelible today. Two socks of two colors on a gentleman’s feet. A friend said, “The socks are different!” The gentleman replied quietly, “What else is new? I have another pair at home—one red, one black!”
When trying to find an explanation for such mistakes, logic sometimes fails. And there is that invisible resident of the printing press—the ‘Printer’s Devil’. In Bengali, many call him the Printer’s Ghost. No one has ever seen him, but everyone has seen his exploits. There are countless examples of how a single letter can change the meaning of a terrible mistake. A famous lawyer proofread his case paper many times and corrected it. The first time, he found forty mistakes, the second time, a mistake of almost a hundred dollars, and the third time, eleven mistakes! Then he realized—fighting with printers is like counting grains of sand in a desert. In fact, mistakes are the eternal companions of people. How many famous books in the world have become bestsellers about spelling or printing mistakes? Even the name of the famous writer Pramath Chowdhury was once printed incorrectly. A famous newspaper in England also made such a mistake while printing the name of the royal palace, which is still an example of humor in the history of printers. Mahatma Gandhi said, “We learn everything through our mistakes and failures.” Really—how do people learn if they don’t make mistakes? In a survey, people were asked—what was the biggest mistake in life? Someone said, “I ruined my eyes by reading too many books.” Another said, “Not studying was the biggest mistake in life.” Someone regretted—“I got married too young.” Another sighed—“I got married too late.” Someone said—not listening to my father was wrong. Someone said—not trying to earn money was wrong. Someone said—not being able to save money was wrong. Someone said—standing for elections was wrong. In other words, the biggest mistake in a person’s life—is different for each person. I also think that every person has an invisible list inside their heart, where it is written—“If I could start life over again…” There are also many funny stories of mistakes. A lady left a restaurant with her husband and suddenly realized that she had left her napkin on the table. She quickly went back and peeked under the table, and Beara said politely, “Madam, you are mistaken. Your husband is not here, he is waiting for you on the sidewalk outside!” This incident proves that mistakes are also misunderstandings. Life sometimes seems like a series of misunderstandings to me. All the paths ahead are the same. Before one can figure out which is right and which is wrong, people knock on the wrong door. Then they come back and try again. Perhaps this journey is life. Let me end with a short yet profound story. A professor and an ordinary peon traveled together on a winter train for two days. On reaching their destination, the professor saw that his blanket was missing. Suspicion fell on the poor fellow passenger. A search was conducted, the bed was opened. Finally, the blanket was found lying under the train berth.
The professor said, embarrassed:
“I’m sorry, I made a mistake.”
The pawn smiled softly and replied—
“I made a mistake too.”
The professor was surprised—”What mistake did you make again?”
The peon’s calm answer—
“You thought I was a thief. And I thought you were a gentleman.” Truly, the biggest mistake in the world is often not in spelling—it is in recognizing people. So mistakes are bound to happen. People make mistakes, people learn. But let’s not make one mistake—the mistake of judging someone without knowing them or understanding them. Because, there is no correction for that mistake.