With the Christmas season upon us, I was surprised to find the most glaring error on the official website of the Maharashtra State Tourism Department. On the page about Mount Mary Church, Bandra; the name of the church (& the URL address) wrongly mentioned the Basilica as “Mount Merry Church”.
Regrettably, for decades now, the Basilica has often incorrectly been called “Mount Merry”, and even “Mount Marry”, just as the stickers behind the taxis and autos often do. While we can perhaps share a joke about “Marry Merry Mary”, an official government website needs to be more sensitive.
Seeing that it was rather shameful that the official Maharashtra Tourism website has such a glaring error, I decided to email them about it, to point out that there is a huge difference between “Merry” and “Mary”; and asked them to amend the webpage and URL. To my surprise, I received a prompt reply from Mr. Yogesh Nirgude of the Maharashtra Tourism department, promising corrective action.
Fortunately, Mr. Nirgude was able to do the needful almost immediately. The webpage now says “Mount Mary Church” rather than “Mount Merry Church”. Unfortunately, the URL is still flawed, but perhaps it is more difficult to correct that. A small victory, but we’ll take it!
In recent times, this has been my second such experience. In 2019, the street name sign board of Mount Mary Road referred to it as “Mount Merry Road”. Luckily I was able to have the BMC change it to its correct name. And of course, Mount Mary Stores on Pereira Road once proudly displayed its name on its board as “Mount Marry Stores”. I wonder if bachelors steered clear of it!
Let’s hope that such errors remain the exception rather than the norm, in present-day Bombay.
Merry Christmas!
