Penmanship

The last few days I had been trying to write with a fountain pen. I got it as a gift this Diwali and had since been itching to write something with it. The gleaming pen itself looked very inviting – the nib glided effortlessly on paper, the ink flowed smoothly, and my own handwriting (dare I say) appeared likeable, if not exactly calligraphic.

Anyway, so, with pen in my hand I started scribbling everywhere – a signature here on the flyleaf of a book, a random line there between the newspaper columns, or even at the back of grocery bills. Well, basically, on anything that came close to the pen. Obviously, I was delighted with this new possession.

That was until I sat down to write something in a more disciplined way. Now I realized the trouble I had in my hand – I cannot do a Ctrl + z to undo what I just wrote, I have to strike out and leave an ugly mark; I cannot Ctrl + c and Ctrl + v a line, I have to write every single character; I cannot hyperlink, neither can I run a spellchecker. Probably, the only saving grace was that I was relieved from doing a Ctrl + s every time I wrote anything. But it was a small consolation. In the absence of an undo option, the page I was writing on resembled more like a cryptic puzzle with misbehaved words running randomly between the lines and making a complete mess.

Much though I tried writing with the pen, it was apparent how much I relied upon Microsoft Word. Usually, I am not the one who always laments giving up all old ways of doing things, but it was a bit unsettling to find that I could feel so uneasy when writing with a pen, which I once enjoyed much.

However, I am not giving up on writing with the pen yet. I still playfully scribble with it everywhere. And hopefully, one of these days, I shall write a blog post with the pen. Or, a letter maybe. Well, anything, as long as it gets written.

PS: One thing makes me wonder. Now that there are technologies assisting us to write and format better, it's odd that I find increasing instances of shoddy writing. And I don’t just mean the ubiquitous misspelled hoardings and signboards. I mean the emails, the SMSes, the chat messages, the documents you come across at workplaces. Everywhere.