To the best of my recollections, I began writing solely with an ambition of acquiring a good handwriting. A pencil in hand, a four line notebook on my tiny desk, I set about quite this goal quite unenthusiastically, possibly only under pressure from my Paati (Grandmother). I had a book on Shankaracharya to copy from. My first attempt would surely have given a nervous breakdown to the gentleman who coined the term “calligraphy”. Without the black board before me and classmates to soothe my nerves when in doubt, writing to me was surely what America was to Columbus, minus the joy factor.
I began my Herculean task by copying the first page word by word, line by line. I must now give you a graphic explanation of what I was trying to achieve. My notebook was the usual small four line notebook available at the stationery shop almost everywhere in India. The book I was trying to re-author was atleast four times the size of my notebook. Each page in the book consisted of an illustration spanning nearly half the page and the rest was occupied by miniscule text. I can now confidently write that it would take atleast five lines of my notebook to copy one line from the giant book for a person with the goal of a semi-decent handwriting.
But, I wasn’t so convinced of my liberties then.
The first line in my book, I found to my horror, could accomodate hardly seven words from the text. Unfortunately for me, the printers had managed to print atleast fifteen in one line. And so, I waged my first war with foolscap (for details on countless other wars, contact Vasu Sir and request him for my Chemistry papers). There, there, I managed to squeeze in four more words into the already congested line. Four remaining, and three went to the third floor of line one, with the last word occupying the penthouse on the fourth floor. Thus ended ordeal one!
Copying line two was all the more difficult considering the fact the line above the one I was writing on was already cramped with words and there couldn’t be any multi-storey apartments this time. Like Shankaracharya, I found myself caught in the jaws of a crocodile, but with a lot of cajoling and coaxing, I scratched my way to Line Three.
Paati had finished cooking the day’s menu and found the time to get a situation update from me. The five lines of yet-unexplained hieroglyphics had her in a state of shock. She got herself a glass of water and introduced me to my first freedom with the written word, the Right To Continue On The Next Line When I Had Written As Much As I Could In The First.
I didn’t, at first, believe her. I took my pencil and wrote a mere five words, mere as compared to the previous fifteen. She encouraged me. I wanted to further explore my new found liberty. I scribbled just two in the next one and she calmly looked at me. I skipped the next two, and the signs of an approaching storm titled “how to avoid wasting painstakingly earned money?” did not cross the shore.
Emboldened, I let my pencil waltz its way to glory. It danced, skated, skidded and rolled across the wood pulp, determined to cross as many metres as it could, hardly so about improving the quality of its squiggles. True, this incident doesn’t call for as much celebrations as does Dhoni’s winning six off Kulasekara at the Wankhede last month, but it holds a unique indefatigable place in my heart for being primarily my first experiment with the written word and more importantly, a priceless moment of my childhood which shall never fail to etch a smile on my lips.
And thus, my tryst with the mighty pen wielded by the likes of Bharati, Shakespeare and Tagore BEGAN...
