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The Writing is On the Wall

Just when he was about to fill up the cheque for electric bill Mr. Raghuraman had to attend a phone call and on return found it was missing. That was also the last sheet of that cheque book. From no where his grand son SAIRAJ-hardly 3 years old- rushed to wards him calling THATHA (grand pa) with his typical babbling demanding him to have a look of a crow that he had drawn in that missing cheque sheet. For a fraction of a second only Mr.Raghu was aghast with the fate of his last cheque sheet. However he recovered swiftly and couldn’t help admiring the budding talent of the youngster. Actually it was the mistake of his daughter and also other members of his family to have hidden all the writing medium and instruments to prevent him from spoiling the house. In these 20 days of his stay at CHENNAI with his parents and sister SANTHOSHI the naughty Sairaj has proved his interest in scribbling, drawing, and writing or whatever you may like to call by decorating the recently painted walls of his grand father’s house with his hand work. He had not only filled the walls but also sofas and chairs with his artistry. Now having saturated all the available media for writing he was hunting for innovative writing media and material. When not a single pencil or pen was available some how he could collect a cut piece of beet root from the kitchen and quench his urge by writing over pillows and screens. Sometimes he used to help himself liberally from the school note book of his sister by name SANTHOSHI.and on those occasions the house used to turn a battlefield.SANTHOSHI also used to have her own share of paintings in a much stronger way by using the unexplored regions by her brother beyond 4 feet from the floor.

The paintings of her parents, brother and grand parents were so much appealing that none of them had the mind to erase them. It is not a solitary case in Mr.Raghuraman’s house only but a universal problem around the globe. All most all the children in the world develop a strong urge to express themselves by such writings from a very early age. It is also the opinion of psychologists to reserve the lower portion of the walls of the houses to cater the need of children itching to write. Whenever children visit friends, relatives or neighbors with their parents they are always under great pressure to control their wards from spoiling the walls and many times had to earn the curse of them. The children are not doing such scribbling to get others praise or prize but only for their self satisfaction. Whenever Sairaj was scribbling with all interest Mr. Raghu used to secretly enjoy his facial expressions that used to change very rapidly with the twisting of the lips, curling of his cheeks and occasional nodding of his head with his own approval. Even elders are having the itching to scribble patterns on paper when they are engaged in telephonic conversation. We have seen quite a lot of people passing their index finger through the heaps of sand of MARINA BEACH at CHENNAI and making figures or writings of their fancy.

Even from prehistoric days human beings were in the habit of expressing their thoughts and feelings by recording and conveying through vast media. In fact we can confidently say the development of writing media and material is the history of civilization. It started all with the caveman when his first invention of handy sharpened stone that was used for all purposes like skinning and killing was also used at later stages by adapting it as a writing instrument. The caveman scratched pictures with the sharpened tool on to the walls of his dwelling cave. The cave drawings represented events in daily life such as the planting of crops or hunting victories. With time it developed into systematized symbols from their drawings. These symbols represented words and sentences but were easies and faster to draw and universally accepted for meaning. The discovery of clay made portable records was made possible. Greeks invented pen and paper. The Chinese invented and perfected Indian ink. Quill pen made out of the feathers of goose and swan was dominating for some time. However LEWIS WATERMAN was the first to introduce fountain pen in the year 1884. Ultimately ball point was invented in 1938. Felt tip marker with fiber tip was invented by Japanese in the year 1962. Then came another variety known as GEL PEN in the year 1984.

Buddhists were expressing strongly by painting inside the caves (Ajantha) and also over rocks. But in India there was revolution in making manuscripts on PALM LEAVES. Actually they were incising with metal pen on a dried and processed palm leaf and blackening the letters with vegetable juice and lamp black. The great VALMIKI RAMAYANA and subsequently KAMBA RAMAYANA were written in bundle of palm leaves.

But unfortunately the scope for writing on paper has considerably been diminished as most of the correspondences are made by ELECTRONIC MAIL and also sending messages through mobile phone and incidentally killing the beauty of the language of ENGLISH beyond recognition. Even in the process of mutilization of the language there is no uniformity. Also there is lot of difference between hand written manuscript written by your dear and near and the lifeless writings through computers. There was a time when Mr.Raghu was getting advisory letters from his father and he was seeing beyond the meaning in those letters as the typical writing of him was putting him before Raghu in flesh and blood. Even after his demise from this world his letters by his own hand writing used to put him momentarily in front of him. There is also the element of enjoyment in writing in your own hand as it involves the expression of art in series of words written in a particular style or angle. When the pen slides over the smooth paper churning out words and sentences ably supported by the ideas generated from the brain you are in different world.

According to to experts hand writing reveals your inner personality to a limited extent. It is also a tell tale story of the author of any writing when the FORENSIC SCEINCE comes to the rescue of experts to fix the identity of the writer by analyzing the questioned documents under powerful microscopes. Even today they accept the individuality of signatures though frequent attempts are made by criminals to hoodwink the bank and other institutions with forged signatures. Now a days even signature is slowly going out of the scene with debit/credit cards and biometric way of identity through finger prints have become the order of the day in banks and international airports. All said and done the manuscripts are always having the sentimental value of the author and even now THE NATIONAL LIBRARY-KOLKATA is maintaining the rarest of the rare books of manuscripts concerning religion, philosophy and arts by great authors. Some of them are historic letters, government deeds and religious books like BHAGWATH GITHA, RAMAYANA, BIBLE and QURAN.

But the day is not far off when hand written manuscripts are totally eliminated from the scene that may include even school note books. There is going to be a brutal dominance of electronic devices like mobile phone, computer etc when even original art form of paintings and drawings would have been annihilated by computer design and digital photography. The scope for man’s original imagination which is the gift of GOD would have been totally wiped out.

I am afraid THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL.

The famous quote of the great SAMUEL JOHNSON as found below may become inappropriate at this period of history NO MAN WAS MORE FOOLISH WHEN HE HAD NOT A PEN IN HIS HAND OR MORE WISE WHEN HE HAD

BY J.PANCHAPAGESAN FLAT-11,130 GILL NAGAR EXTN STREET CHOOLAIMEDU CHENNAI PH-044 23744963 EMAIL id- jpanchapagesan@yahoo.co.in