Slips... oops!

M ishaps and slips of tongue, happens all the time to most people. To which us both are not immune. And we have loads of stories to tell this week on memory lane.

One day me and Anuki was going down memory lane when I felt like telling her about my one such ‘slip’. I was in the university, must have been in my third year, when I went to meet one of my geography lecturers. We were engaged in small talk when I accidentally called him ‘uncle’. I don’t have to tell you how sheepish I felt. It was extremely embarrassing.

I have this really bad habit of laughing my lungs out whenever my mother makes such mistakes. So it’s probably retribution that, lately my tongue seems to have a will of its own and refuse to comply with what I want to say. For some reason, I seem to be making a lot of slips of the tongue lately.

I was given an assignment, for which I had to contact a lot of bhikkus. It was around a poya and they were understandably difficult to contact. It took me two whole weeks to track all of them down! It was down to the last one. I didn’t have this particular thera’s number. So I called up one of our co-workers, in another newspaper.

He kindly went through his contacts and gave me some numbers. He told me that he wasn’t sure whether the numbers were accurate but told me to try all the numbers he gave me.

I was so grateful to have finally found the bhikku’s number that I - instead of saying ‘yes’ - inadvertently said ‘ehei’ (respectful word for ‘yes’). I hung up in an overwhelming rush of embarrassment. When I told my co-workers about it they all had a hearty laugh. When I told Anuki about these recent freaky mishaps, she told me that I am not alone in this.

But this particular incident is unparalleled, I think. My mother-in-law-to-be was in the hospital for a few days. She was suffering from a back pain and I went to see her on two consecutive days. The poor soul was in so much pain. I had to attend a wedding in Matara the day after her second day at hospital. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it the day after.

I was wondering as to how to put it across to her when she asked me if I would be coming the next day after. I was so relieved that she brought the subject up herself that I accidentally said ‘no mame (uncle)’ I was so taken aback that I couldn’t think of a way to correct myself. I didn’t even know if she had noticed it. And I ended up saying ‘maa...maa...mee...mee’

Recently Samadhi and I went to discuss our weekly line-up of articles with our second boss. We had a discussion about Buddhism and the famous hamuduruwos (bhikkus) in our society.

I wanted to share some views of an interview I had with a certain famous bhikku. Midway the discussion turned into a fully fledged brainstorming session and in the heat of the excitement I accidentally blurted out addressing him as ‘hamuduruwane’. We ended up having a good laugh. Well after all they say that laughing is the best medicine.