Thursday, November 28, 2013

Handwriting

It is about time I enshrined the excellence of my handwriting. The time seems to be fast approaching when people will be saying,"People actually used to write with their hands? How quaint". Provided, of course, they have still maintained the other quaint habit of talking with their mouths.

I can well visualize an evolved human species whose love life goes something like this.

"luv ya" texts one sitting opposite the other.
"me 2" texts back the other.
"*hugs*"
"*kisses*"

And both feel the same ecstasy as though they had actually done the hugging and kissing - and show it by exchanging ecstatic emoticons. Why, I can even imagine the parents expressing the extremity of their rage at their offsprings' love by texting a "*Facepalm*" and an emoticon shooting steam.

But - I digress! We were talking about the excellence of my calligraphy. (We weren't? Then we will!)

Apparently there is a sub-species of human called graphologists who claim to read character from handwriting. My mom took a sample of my writing to one such and sought to know about my character. He studied it for long and raised his head and said angrily, "What do you mean by walking a chicken all over the paper and bringing it to me? Are you testing me?"

With such an auspicious start to my calligraphic career, things could only look up. I still remember my class teacher having given me half the marks on all answers when comparison with my friends told me that I had got them all correct (Yeah! It did happen once or twice. More often than not, though, my perfection showed itself the other way round - in getting everything wrong). I indignantly went to her seeking an answer and she said wearily, "If only I could read what you had written, I may be able to answer you"

That day also taught me the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. My mom was all gung-ho about my performance. "If only he had better handwriting, he would be the topper". My dad, though, had tangential ideas. "Who knows? If the teacher could have actually read it all, he might have got a zero. It is thanks to the illegibility that he passed the exam." Now, who was the optimist and who the pessimist I leave to your judgment.

In my initial days dealing with banks, I was always in and out of the bank manager's room. Every time I issued a cheque I needed to go personally and verify the changed signature and read out the recipient's name as well as the amount. Things came to such a pass that I started fearing that the day would come when someone would just have to bring an illegible cheque and the bank would debit it to my account. So, it is with great relief I took to internet banking.

Time has rolled on and it has been ages since I needed to use pen and paper. The world may have lost a great calligraphist but there is none more relieved than the calligraphist himself. After all, when you type on Word it does not change the font to suit the calligraphic abilities of the typist. Thank God!

57 comments:

  1. Yours is quite literally the 'kozhi kirakkal' if the graphologist's words are anything to go by, and that line about your dad and mom being optimistic and pessimistic respectively or vice versa still has me chuckling. Lovely post about a seemingly uninteresting 'chickened out' handwriting topic :)

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    1. It certainly used to be - whether it is still the 'kozhikirukkal' or not I would not know since it is ages since I wrote anything :)

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  2. Aha!A very nice start to my day-thanks.Bdw i too fall in this category.

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  3. I can totally relate to the bank experience :) For this very reason, couple of years back when I opened an account, I begged the bank manager to take my thumbprint instead but for some strange reason he did not honor that. I felt discriminated just because I was literate :)

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    1. Hahaha! File a suit against the bank. This sort of discrimination must be eliminated :)

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  4. Interesting. I too have tales of my hand writing.

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  5. haha..Suresh you know I find it difficult to write using the pen and there was a time when I would have to fill pages after pages in exams...!! And the 'R' in my signature is never same, its a headache!

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    1. I am finding it tough to even hold a pen these days, Naba :)

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  6. Now I find it so hard to write one page. And my own handwriting looks strange to me :).

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    1. You are better off Rachna! I find it near impossible to even fill in a deposit slip :)

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  7. Tell me! How many times have I been invited into the bank manager's room since my student days! Once he almost gave me a lecture on the importance of consistent good handwriting esp from exam point of view. But I still maintain that our handwritings are any time better than that of any doctors!

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    1. THAT was my only qualification to become a doctor :)

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  8. Technology came to your rescue! :P .. psst...Dont let anybody know about your MBA background, our lot will be further defamed :P :P

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    1. For once it did! And, btw, is there any further leeway left in defaming MBAs? :)

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  9. Haha! This is so funny! Loved your father's tangential ideas!! :D Only fathers can say such things to their sons!! I have a fairly nice handwriting but now-a-days, I hardly write and when I do, it surely looks spidery!

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  10. Even Mahatma Gandhi had very bad hand-writing but he became the Father of the Nation!!!!!

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    1. Well - if only just having a bad handwriting makes me a Mahatma :)

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  11. Now that I have stopped laughing let me share that all great people run chickens over paper. Including Mahatma Gandhi.

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    1. On this characteristic at least I can count myself akin to the great :)

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  12. "Provided, of course, they have still maintained the other quaint habit of talking with their mouths." - Haha.
    My Left hand is supposed to be my right hand. But for most time, I am ambidextrous. While that makes me an intelligent woman if science is to be believed, it did no good to my hand-writing. I know I could have topped the university if I wrote prettily. :D

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    1. Success stolen by the scrawl :) True of me as well, of course :P

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  13. hahaha, it would be fun if parents start using emoticons to scold their kids.

    enjoyed reading this post, suresh!

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    1. Thanks Debs! Wished we had lived in such times as kids :)

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  14. Hahaha...I love your dad's insightfulness. My hubby had the same problem with banks. He got tired and resorted to just writing his name in place of signature and he has a problem with that too!

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  15. hehehe face palm :-p I almost visualized it :) hehehe Nice post Suresh Ji

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  16. Oh...I remember those days when I used to collect ball pens..Rotomac and Renoylds...The Golden Era when Pen and the Paper reigned supreme..Now I simply collect MS Word Fonts...The ones you get under the folder : C:\Windows\Fonts :(

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  17. Can you imagine how successful you could have been as a GP? Writing all those prescriptions that only a chemist (not even you yourself!) could have deciphered? :-D

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    1. That hypothesis is untested - that even a Chemist could decipher it :)

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  18. I almost visualized FACEPALM hahahahaha :D nice one!

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    1. Thanks Shilpi! Hope the post did not make you feel like facepalming :)

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  19. Reminded me of my schooling days Suresh . there were many teachers who often said 'if only ur handwriting was better your destiny would be different' hi hi. but later in life many have told me that my handwriting is really good. Who am i supposed to believe? Anyways i am also glad about the way technology has shaped up things

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    1. Hmm! My critics stayed consistent - everyone who looked at my handwriting throughout my life ended up feeling that THEIR handwriting was beautiful :)

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  20. LOL ! "walking a chicken all over the paper" Hilarious ! Looking at the way things are going..Handwriting skills may soon be a thing of the past.. who uses Ink pen these days ?.. what we used to use in school..
    I am so out of touch with 'hand' writing these days, that my son takes me to task for my squiggly marks on paper, if I dare to remark about his writing !

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  21. I belong to the professionals who have been a shining example of legible handwriting in past, jokes have been made about our as straight as jalebi handwriting over years, yet somehow i have let down my peers and maintained a nice hand and yes thanks to the art of writing prescribtions that I am still in a habit of using pen and paper.
    so far so good.

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    1. It is a mystery that how they allowed you to become a doc, Ratika :)

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  22. Count me in.
    My signatures never match on my cheques.

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  23. I miss the days when writing and typing were not equivalent. :(

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    1. You would not if you were forced to read my handwriting, Akanksha :)

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  24. Suresh Sir, now I would like to see your handwriting. Just to make sure that you haven't broken my records. :-D

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  25. Hahaha! So more of the 'lovely' handwriting brigade :)

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  26. hehehehe.....that way, dad's signatures never match....i have never seen him put two similar looking signatures ever!!!! quite contrarily my handwriting is quite good( talk of being humble!!) and would you believe if i told u, my resume for my first job was handwritten by me ( and i did land that job!!)

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    1. If THAT had happened to me, my dad would have said that I got the job only because my writing was illegible. Had the prospective employer been able to read it, he would not hv touched me with a barge-pole :P

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  27. I guess one of the many reasons I absolutely like reading your posts is that I have experienced in my very own life some of the incidents you so humorously describe.

    To this day I am certain that I got through my exams purely on the merit of my handwriting and use of active and passive voice. I am so glad that my writing was that indecipherable, otherwise I would still have been languishing in this unlivable sheds we called dorms.

    Suresh, your posts are a breath of fresh air and help us deal with life feeling better than what we were before reading them. Thank you, Sir!

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  28. That was in 2013, and you have predicted the scenario quite correctly. People now would rather type to get legible handwritten fonts than even try writing one. I wonder what would happen to their individuality. Doesn't individuality begin with handwriting?

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    1. Individuality is in the mind and THAT we have all given up to people who tell us what to think :)

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