14 July 2016 12:00 am
There is a veteran film artiste residing in Panadura area. He had another house given on rent by the side of the Galle road.
None of the artiste’s children or his grandchildren wanted this extra house and he decided to sell it.
So the artiste put adverts in the Press and websites to sell the house. However, none of the prospective buyers offered a reasonable price for the valuable property. They all wanted to buy it dirt cheap. He was determined not to sell it for anything short of Rs.9.5 million.
Later he put up a sign board at the turn off from the Galle road to his house on sale displaying a picture of the house and a direction-indicating arrow mark followed by a conspicuous ‘ 150 m’ on it. But no buyers turned up for some time.
One day a lady who came by in a car called on the artiste. She said that she happened to notice the sign board. “Are you in your proper senses? Do you think that you can find a buyer willing to pay Rs.150 million for this house? One can buy a better house in Colombo 7 for a much lesser amount!”
“But, Madam, we are not naming such a high price for the house. Who told you this Rs.150 million story?”
“But the sign board at the turn off says that the house is on sale for 150 ml. Doesn’t it mean Rs.150 million?”
“You are mistaken, Madam. We have said: ‘150 M’ meaning 150 meters – the distance from the Galle road to the house on sale.”
The artiste immediately went to the location where the sign board stood and found someone had added the letter ‘L’ after ‘M’.
Members of the artiste’s family circle were very angry and were cursing the unknown author of this act of mischief. However, the artiste looked calm and serene.
“There is a saying that you reap what you sow, when I was quite young I played a similar prank,” he told his children.
“Tell us that story, Papa,” they requested.
“There was a posh house to be rented out in our village. The owner put up a ‘TO LET’ sign board opposite that house. One day, in the night I drew the letter ‘I’ to fill the mid-space to make it read TOILET!”