AFTER GRAMMAR TAUNT, A 'GOVERNER' GAFFE

New Delhi, June 17: Those who live in glass houses shouldn't make spelling mistakes, Smriti Irani has learnt to her cost.

A misspelled "Governer" by the Union human resource development minister today handed 21-year-old Saral Patel of Ahmedabad, whom she had pulled up for a grammatical error earlier this week, a chance at revenge.

Patel had been caught in the crossfire when, on Tuesday morning, Irani objected to Bihar education minister Ashok Choudhary addressing her as "dear" in a tweet about the national education policy.

As the spat played out over the social media, Patel had butted in with: "Had you went to college/University you would know that it's a common practice to address people as 'Dear'."

Irani wasn't one to let a grammatical howler pass, even on Twitter. "Grammar theek karo beta (Correct your grammar, son)," she advised.

Patel, who has changed his Twitter handle to "Beta Saral" following Irani's rejoinder, today got the chance he was waiting for.

Irani, on a tour of Lucknow, tweeted a picture of herself with Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik around 3.30pm with the caption: "Interacted with Hon Governer of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Ram Naikji."

"Spelling theek karo auntyji (Correct your spelling)," was the 3.42pm comeback from "your Beta".

From then on, Patel has been rubbing it in, egged on by fellow Twitter users.

"This is called #poetic justice! Day ago she asked me 'Grammar Theek Karo Beta' & now misspells 'Governor'," Patel gloated.

"Hey adarniya mata spelling theek kariye (Respected mother, please correct your spelling)," he continued.

Patel later told The Telegraph over the phone from Ahmedabad that he had enjoyed taking Irani on.

"I really enjoyed myself today. I had been regretting putting out that tweet the other day without putting my mind to it. I regretted the grammatical error that gave her the opportunity to rebuke me. Now I am happy," he said.

Irani soon deleted her earlier tweet and put up a corrected one, but the Twitterati wouldn't stop mocking her.

"It took 1hour18mins for @PatelSaral007's Aunty @smritiirani to learn spelling of 'Governor'," tweeted Vinay Dokania.

"Saral bhai is having the last laugh. HAHAHAHAHAH..... Aunty National gets paid in the same coin....," tweeted A.L.

Some Twitter users had taken a screen shot of her earlier post; they kept re-tweeting it till it went viral hours after the correction was made. Another tweet let Irani know that her mistake had been recorded for posterity.

Patel said he too had taken a screenshot of Irani's first tweet as soon as he had pointed out her mistake, knowing she was likely to delete it.

A regular on Twitter since 2010, Patel says his comment on the "dear" controversy was the first time he had reacted to a tweet from Irani.

"I reacted because I felt she was creating an unnecessary controversy. How is calling anyone 'dear' derogatory?" he said.

"I wonder how she has so much time to engage with people on Twitter. That means she is not doing her job."

The businessman's son has been doing a graduation course in political science from the University of Alberta in Canada: he has to travel there to take his exam.

"I told my parents about my spat with the minister; they were not too happy and asked me to be cautious and not to get into any further fights with her," Patel said.

"I'm not scared. I tweeted against Narendra Modi when he was Gujarat chief minister - while living in Ahmedabad. I'm not a Congress worker or anything, but I have been consistently taking on BJP trolls. You can call me a Congress volunteer in that sense," he laughed.