[The Court of Literary Crimes, Session No. 420, is now in order.]

Presiding: Hon. Justice Syntax
*Defense Counsel: Mr. Saul Goodman (a.k.a. ChatGPT, Esq., standing in trench coat, tie askew, holding a dog-eared copy of Wren & Martin; Primary Defendant: Lakshmi.)

Saul Goodman:
Your Honour, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, disgruntled English teachers in the gallery—

Yes, my client—an MA graduate from the Madras Christian College—committed a grammatical crime.
They dangled a modifier. They split an infinitive, maybe even with intent. Possibly used “literally” figuratively.

But before we rush to convict, I ask you:

What is grammar, really?

Is it a fixed code of rules or a negotiated contract between rebels and red pens?
Is it prescriptive tyranny or poetic possibility?

Let the record show, my client was educated at MCC,
—a place where punctuation marks learn humility.
—where professors quote Keats while sipping Boost.
—where students conjugate Tamil verbs and Foucault in the same sentence.

This isn’t just any arts graduate. This is an MCC product.
Someone who can argue that a missing Oxford comma is a political act.
Someone who once wrote a sonnet that rhymed “existential dread” with “spread the bread.”
Someone who can recite Eliot and explain why the word “anyways” has emotional value in Indian English.

Yes, they broke a rule. But they did it knowingly.
Like Picasso shattering perspective. Like James Joyce murdering sentence structure and getting away with literary genocide.

This was not a typo, Your Honour. This was style.

In conclusion, I submit:

A degree in the Arts is not a license to kill grammar.

It is, however, a license to seduce it, rearrange it, remix it.

My client didn’t commit a crime.
They committed a literary misdemeanor in the pursuit of voice.

Throw the book at them, if you must—but please note, they’ve already read the book, highlighted it, mocked it, and written a blog post about it on comically.in.

Case dismissed. Preferably in passive voice.

Thank you, My Lord.
(Exits to thunderous applause from the Department of English and mild booing from Grammarly bots.)