SNUG AS A GUN

Photo: Prabir Das

Is the pen mightier than the keyboard? With the increasing use of laptops and smart phones, and in the realm of 'tweeting' and instant messaging, one could think that the world might just rub the pen off its hands. Typing surely has its many advantages. But the pen, too, has a myriad of benefits that a keyboard can't simply provide.

Handwriting is gradually dying out. It is not going to the grave alone, though. The practice of letter-writing is already a charm of a bygone era. Begum Sufia, aged 50, often walks down the memory lane by reading letters her brother used to send after she got married and moved to a different city. "I used to wait for months to get one of these," she says, opening the shoe box where she keeps the letters.

The pages-long handwritten letters, now brownish, narrate every detail and events big and small of the family and neighbourhood she had left behind. They also say how she was missed and raise anxious inquiries about her life in her in-laws' family.

"Letters are more personal; the cursive handwriting, the texture, the feel," Sufia opines. "Every detail matters – the scratched out words, a blob of ink, an accidental drop of wax from the candle. They paint a vivid picture of my brother writing the letters."
Handwritten letters are intimate; they bring in the human factor.

Of course, emails have made life easier. The world has become a small, global village, where you can communicate with your loved ones in real time. Many children in the classrooms prefer taking notes on a screen instead of the notebook. Assignments are typed and then emailed or printed out.

But the practice of handwriting offers you more than 'charm'. There is a neurological aspect to it.

The task is rather complex; children take years of practice before they can fully grasp it. From the firm grip of the pen or pencil to hand eye coordination to the unique, intended movements for each alphabet, handwriting is a motor exercise that typing just doesn't require, where all you need to do is to push the right keys. Some experts even see a connection between writing and reading among children.

Do the two processes affect the quality of the content of the text? Obviously, an individual's comfort/preference is one of the factors. A lot of world famous authors have made the shift from handwriting to typing, while many have not.

Sci-fi writer Neil Gaiman likes 'the act of making paper dirty' whilst Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri says she feels 'freer' when she writes by hand. As poet Seamus Heaney said in Digging:

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.   

We are not asking anyone to shun modern technology. By the way, the pen-and-keyboard issue is not a new one. Remember typewriters? But, in this day and age, with some form of keyboard entering even the classrooms, it is a very relevant issue indeed.
In the overwhelming world of typing, let's not forget or underrate the importance of handwriting.