My handwriting

My handwriting has always been a butt of jokes since my childhood. When my school teacher asked me to write between two lines, I always ended up writing on either side of a line so that it looked as if I struck off the entire line. My 'l' used to lean to the left while my 'i' used to lean to the right. The 'f' never went below the baseline thus resembling 'b'. When I used cursive alphabets for connected writing, I mixed cursive capital letters with cursive small letters on random basis. 'G' was the commonest letter that randomly became cursive capital in the middle of a word- towering over every other letter and asking them to lie down in obeisance which they obliged but in different directions. 

It is in my 4th standard that the English teacher called me and asked me to read out my answers since she could not read what I wrote. The left sided leaning of my 'l' worsened by my 5th standard and looked as if it is fighting gravity and one fine day will fall and merge with the baseline. I tried to improve my handwriting by practicing on a ruled book- placed at different angles to my hand. I ended up rotating it 360 degrees with the same result. When I tried to verticalize the 'l', the 'i' tended to lean further to the right- it is as if the two are connected by an invisible rod.

After a point it was an absolute mess- print capital, print small, cursive capital and cursive small- all vying for space in a single sentence. I made sure that the first letter in the sentence was a capital, but the rest can be anything. Not that my vernacular handwriting was any better. My 'Telugu' sentences resembled Malayalam, Tamil and Greek rolled into one. 

If I try to make my handwriting good, the contents suffered - because so much of my mental energy is spent in guiding my fingers around the intricate loops and turns that I forgot what it is that I was writing. I used to grip the pen so hard that after one page of writing, the finger pulps of the thumb and index finger and the side of the middle finger had deep indentations (with liberal ink staining) and I had to massage them back to shape. I had this habit of wiping off this ink on the fingers on to the hair. The next shampooing of hair produced blue or black washings depending on which ink was used before this hair wash. The fountain pens I used to carry also did not like my handwriting and used to vomit ink on my paper periodically.

I was sure that in my MBBS exams, the examiners could not read what I wrote. That is why I never failed nor did I get high marks in theory papers. The first time I opened a bank account there was war of nerves between the bank manager and my self. Each signature of mine was different from the previous one. I could see him mentally tearing his hair out. I almost thought he will ask me to put my left thumb print instead. Believe me this was after I practiced my signature a whole day.

In my job, my handwriting came in handy. When my boss tried to pull me up for not documenting something- I showed him a segment of my scribble and say 'this is it'. He can try reading it from any direction but will not be able to decipher and had to take my word for it. 

I had an extremely efficient secretary working for me for several years who could read my old and current handwriting well. My colleagues took her help to decipher some patient's records with my handwriting in it. One day I had to read my own old notes and believe me -'I could not read it' and had to take her help. Those were the days of no computer, no mobile phone and no e- mail. When I went abroad, I wrote long letters to my wife but made sure there are no sensitive matters discussed for fear that she may have to take the help of my secretary to decipher the contents.

Then came the computers and electronic medical records. I took to this technology like a fish to water. Suddenly all that I wrote became legible and clear to every body including to me. I learnt to type very fast and did not hesitate to write long notes. 

I personally think they should teach typing in kindergarten and not handwriting. Who needs to write these days anyway. Everything about oneself is triggered by face recognition, biometrics or QR codes. The pen has become an ornament a la the 'pocket square'. Many executives carry expensive pens in their pockets for display but rely on the 10-rupee pen of the secretary for signing documents. Often the pen they carry is a dummy with no refill or the ink in it is caked from non-use. 

I have a good friend who has a very good handwriting. If she wants to insult me, she will write next to my handwritten note and if she wants to punish me, she will make me read a page of my old notes. One day I surprised her with some very legible and good handwriting. She fainted and had to be revived with smelling salts.

I became a surgeon and after several years of practice, one patient brought my handwritten prescription for clarifications. While leaving, he quipped, 'with such bad handwriting how do you manage to do good surgery'. I retorted by saying, 'I tie knots in your body and knots are meant not to be unravelled- much like my handwriting.'

I read a little about 'Graphology'- (trying to understand a person from his handwriting). Apparently, large letters mean confidence and outgoing nature; small letters mean introversion; rightward slant means openness; leftward slant means introspection and reserved nature; vertical writing means a balanced person; Wider spaces means independence; 'T'with bars and 'i' with dots indicate high ambition etc. 

 But what if all of these variations exist in one single sentence?- and add to it 'indecipherability'. I would say it means 'sheer genius'- hahaha!!!