E-Paper
A spoonful of the good old: Four pages of the handwritten word
One glance at those handwritten words and it is hard to miss how they bring alive what, why and how of the person we were, at that time, at that moment.
Last week, I found myself in a quaint position. As a part of my writing routine, I wake up to a mug of chai, open my laptop, and glide straight into action. But no. Not this morning. Something pulled me away from my keyboard and the screen, the mouse pad and the wi-fi. I was in the mood to write but not in the mood to tap away on a digital medium.
So, I reached out to the drawer, quickly picked a diary, and started to pen down my thoughts. The alphabets took shape. The pages began to fill up as the blue ink made twists and turns, crests and troughs, curves and lines, scribbles and crosses. Occasional unrecognisable drawings accompanied the readable words. They laid bare the atmosphere of my mind.
Time passed like a flash. I help up the first draft of my thoughts. Four pages of the handwritten word moistened on the edge by an accidental drop of tea.
Something felt different. I smiled.
I could not just visualise but also touch my thoughts as they took shape on paper. Each sentence had an identity of its own. Not because the thoughts were unique but because when written, each word captures a thought that embodies the author’s personality. Slanted words, straight words, hastily written, fully formed letters, trailing off the margins, using crutches to join one with the other, hard-pressed words dark and bold, faint words with a light touch of the nib.
Quite a change from the linear punching of words via keypads and keyboards every day. The pages in my diary didn’t look neat and clean or aligned. My alphabets did what they wanted. They were messy. The lines were asymmetrical. But they were real. And they were me. I was tempted to hide the tea stain by turning the paper inward only to laugh and hold back as I remembered my childhood memory of how angry it made my teachers when I made donkey’s ears!
There is something so beautiful and connected about translating thoughts into handwritten notes, bringing with them an added element of permanence one aches to hold on to. Once the page is full, we have to move to a new base to write more. We can’t just press Control-A and Delete to use the same word document aka page again and again. We may choose to discard the page. Tear it. Crush it. Throw it in a paper basket. But is it that easy? Haven’t we experienced a sense of parting with our notebooks and marked textbooks, diaries and folders, even when we know the content in them is no longer relevant? Haven’t we been at the crossroads of a bittersweet feeling when we have to decide between throwing or not throwing an old diary or journal or even a piece of paper that holds our long-forgotten thoughts? One glance at those handwritten words and it is hard to miss how they bring alive what, why and how of the person we were, at that time, at that moment. And for me, that extends even to work notes from years ago. They open up to me incredible back stories of my evolution as a professional.
In contrast, we wouldn’t take a second to decide whether we want to delete an entire folder of the written word from our computers, right? Let alone feeling a tinge of parting, we would happily go a step ahead and wipe off its existence permanently by emptying the Recycle Bin!
Of course, we must use the power of technology and the virtual world to create and communicate in all forms digitally. In large volumes, across the globe. And I had to go back to my laptop and convert my four pages of the handwritten word into the digital format to email it to its destination. Yes, it was a double effort. But a tiny one for the experience of tasting a spoonful of the good old.
Anusha Singh is a Mumbai-based corporate communications consultant and a columnist. She can be reached at anushasingh3@gmail.com
