The Pleasure of Writing

I still remember filling up cursive writing books at age 3, page after page of running my pencil over beautifully formed, curlicued words that spelt little 3-letter objects. My tongue would stick out in concentration and I would impatiently erase any mistakes and try to get it right.


The transition from using a pencil to using a pen. We knew it came in the second semester of class 5. And how we looked at our seniors in awe of their ink-stained fingers and the blots on their white shirts! When I was taken to choose my first fountain pen I was excited beyond words. It was a Stic pen, with a red top and a green bottom, and Dennis the Menace on it! Much later I discovered that Dennis was tiptoeing around my pen with his bottom showing!!! I wish I hadn't lost that collector's edition of a pen!


It was around this time that I found a new friend who had a lovely handwriting. In fact, I liked it so much that I wanted it. So I took it. Trying for days, I began to copy her writing, the way she wrote the 'b' and 'p' in cursive, without joining it to the stem, instead curling the end towards the next letter. The way the letter 'I' looked like a budding tulip. The letter 'x', not often-enough used, I complained when I finally learnt to copy it's lovely quadri-directional existence on my notebook pages. The letter 'A', curving at the top and giving me infinite happiness each time I wrote my name.


Very soon, I had it to an art. And most people (except the 2 of us) couldn't tell our handwritings apart. I don't think we ever got to exploit that, if at all there was any way of doing so. I don't remember doing her homework for her. But once, when I was sick and missed school, she wrote out a separate copy of the class notes for me and all I had to do was stick it in my notebook. No one could tell the difference.


We grew older and older, writing not just class notes, but scribbling notes on the last pages of the notebooks as we ourselves sat in the last rows of the classroom. Code names for boys we liked and girls we hated, rude limericks and comments about boring teachers standing 10 feet away, all of these were scrawled in handwritings that were still fresh, new, and getting to know the world.

And we used that handwriting every chance we got. Cards were scribbled on, inside, outside, even the envelope! Autograph books were covered in minute handwriting to make optimal use of the space provided. A fracture covered in plaster cast was a way to show our creativity. Blackboards were covered with chalk dust whenever there was coloured chalk to spare and no teacher to stop us. My handwriting gradually took on some influences of my own self and soon it was no longer like my friend's, though I can usually still do a good imitation!


A one-year stint in an American school abroad meant that my handwriting, however neat, was unacceptable. On the chance that teachers may have trouble reading cursive where most American kids can barely string two letters together, we had to turn in typed assignments. Suddenly, all that I had worked years to cultivate was outdated. I had to learn to type! Painstakingly, again with my tongue almost sticking out with effort, I learnt to negotiate my way around the keyboard.


Back to India and college, and notes taken in class were no longer meant to be shared with the teacher, so handwritings changed, often for the worse. But best handwritings still surfaced for writing in yearbooks, in birthday cards, on tutorial essays. In my MA days I wrote four 10,000 word papers in 7 days, filling up reams on paper and leaving a little writer's lump on the topmost knuckle of my right middle finger.


Today, that lump no longer exists. It's smoothened out with time, just as fonts like Arial and Times New Roman have smoothened out the curves of my diligently-acquired handwriting. If I write now, it's lists for shopping, or occasional cards where I write ' Dear...' and a few more fond words and then 'Love, ...' and I'm done. What developed over years of growing up took only a few years of computer literacy to go away. Now I can't write much without my hands aching and my handwriting going all wobbly. And I am the person who wrote long long letters to friends and family, maintaining an even hand throughout.

With this loss, I feel like I have lost a human part of me. A part that says who I am and how I write. A part that no one can imitate (although I was a shameless imitator once). A part that jumps out of paper at the reader and says 'This was written by Anamika'. That is recognisable as belonging to me and me alone. That I can claim. That I can take credit for. That reminds me that words were once new, difficult and you had to work hard to make them speak for you.