Why we're losing the art of writing by hand
Wasn't the pen mightier than the sword? Now, you press a button and it's there – the letter. On a stark white background, the exact number of pixels turns black in a definite pattern and the letter comes up.
The scribble of that fashioned nib, the last dregs of graphite, the smooth roll of the revolutionary ball points and the selfless sacrifice of processed bamboo absorbing the blue and black of indelible ink – all rolled into one single press of a button, tap.
Our parents used to boil old ink pens in water to get them going again, and don't even mention hieroglyphics, they make me sad.
Do you remember the first word you ever typed? The first word you ever wrote? Do you ever think about it?
You might not. Most of us take writing for granted. We won't realise it when writing fades away. Or maybe we will. Or maybe we shouldn't. Good riddance, eh?
All those hours drained down in the childish greed of showing off your new and expensive pen, selecting the right sticker for your favourite subject's notebook and buying refills, nibs, ink pots and ink erasers... These hours won't be given back to you.
There is a painful pleasantness in reminiscing. There is a self-righteousness in looking ahead. The choice has always been ours. For me, it started with digital books.
"How can you read in that little screen?"
"Don't you miss the smell of fresh pages?"
"What do you like? Writing or typing?"
Maybe, I find myself in these conversations more often because I am a copywriter but our generation will soon start bearing the loss/reaping the benefits of a forgotten art.
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| Most of us take writing for granted. |
The serpentine C, the undulating patterns of "ka" (क) and meem (م), the last strokes shabd bandhas, the gentle lift of palm (space bar) and the kindergarten course books with perfectly shaped letters in upper case and lower case... It was the stuff of dreams, to be able to paint our thoughts with our own hands; as if the paper was a white rock and we wielded blue black chisels, sculpting words.
"Who has the best handwriting?"
Another childish pride.
"I can write with both hands."
Well, with these smartphones, everybody can.
"I tried cursive for a year but gave up on it. After a while, it started feeling like my entire world is tilted in a strange angle..."
Sounds like a student's quarter life crisis. But was it fun? You can ask the kids. They are still doing it every day but for how long?
Someday, we will start thinking that the time, money, efforts and resources that go into teaching the kids how to write will be fruitless once they start typing.
Of course, they need to understand the letters and words but what after that – a three-lined notebook to get the dash of T and slash of S right? Why?
Why shouldn't they learn typing and do away with all this mumbo jumbo. Maybe, they won't call it mumbo jumbo now but after a 100 years, who can tell?
"OMG, you can write. How rave is that! Would you write my name on my shoulder with that cool pen?" Imagine the possibilities.
I left writing in 2011. I remember the year.
I still write but mentally; I am not attached to it. Maybe, I am too lazy to take that stroll down the memory lane and think about good old days when I fell in love with Pilot pen, my evergreen companion in my exams. Free Pdfs came in my life first as they appealed to my spendthrift Indian mind - why buy when one can for free try! I realised that in order to read what I want for free, I will have to resort to this.
"I still want to feel the book in my hand to read it," a friend of mine said.
"It's a different feeling - lying in verandah on an armchair reading a nice book. How can I do that on a phone?” Another one mused.
Kindle came and solved that – the feel of a book with the capacity of a library. For an Indian like me, that again was an expense. I stayed with my laptop and phone. Reading one after another, I made peace with the digital books I knew not when. It just seemed convenient.
On the writing front, I lost a lot due to yellowing papers and my unforgiving forgetfulness. When I started typing down the stuff I wrote in my little notebooks and putting it on the cloud, I was already in love with the sheer ease and convenience.
Did I still write? Yes. We still wrote our exams in colleges. Writing, as a form of expression, is still respected enough to be given this status. Corporate world is not like that. They don't want any wishy washy nonsense that can come between them and their time.
We use computers now. Why? Well, Computers are cool. They do things coolly. They don't complain, work tirelessly and never have girlfriend troubles.
Maybe that's the reason they are so "in" these days. They save money too and we love them because we love our time more than anything…more than money, maybe.
But what about striking through a line you don't like and starting afresh. Your every move is marked forever on a paper. It should be, because it was an idea - what if it's a bad one? What about that?
What about writers? What about those who like to hold a book in their hands while sitting in their verandah watching rain, sipping tea and basking in the absolute glory of literature? What about pens and pen masters? Bookworms? Calligraphers, historians... too insignificant? Enough of this whataboutery, don't you think?
The good thing is we are not forced to give up writing. Future is counting on our laziness. Marketers are counting on our foolishness; politicians too.
In these times of profit and loss, people might give up writing forever. But WGADR? Who gives a damn, really?
I? Riding the metro packed with people from all sides, struggling to type all this on a smartphone with a broken screen (if you haven't yet seen one or two screens break, you haven't seen life)? Who am I to talk about writing? Or type about it.
Life goes on. Soon, we will find another muse. We are humans.