This is very true that now, a large number of people do on write by hand. This means that less and lesser people now use diary, pen or pencil and they use computers, laptops and smartphones for writing and memorising the things. This is a very common practice to give diaries, fountain pens or writing kit as gifts, unaware that hardly anybody uses them although now pen is also a formidable form of technology, Kind people often give me fountain pens as gifts, unaware that for me the fountain pen is an attractive form of technology, designed with timepiece, calculator and other material. People are so lazy or unsystematic that most of are unable to fill, refill the fountain pen or ball-point.
There was a time when people have, blue, red or blue-black ink, over their hands, shirts and clothes. So many handkerchiefs used to be ruined to clean the stains of the ink. Children used to spoil the sarees and dupattas of their mothers or sisters. All such pleasures and family bonding are now gone with the technologies. Now users are always worried about their safety, maintenance and high cost.
Now, the rejected, good old ball-point has replaced the pen. It rarely spoils the clothes and hand and it is used and throws type which fits the modern day youth’s philosophy of do as one likes or total casualness. Now, nobody keeps ink-pot, blotting paper, eraser sharpener, diary and writing pads. People have completely surrendered to computers, calculators and smart phones.
Technology has changed our lives, behaviour and personality. We don’t think about the pros and cons of the using computers and smartphones but rather we are over dependent or slave of them. If they are not around us we become uncomfortable and irritating.
Around two decades back, school going kids were fully equipped with pen-holders into which nibs had to be fixed and ink-pots. Almost all the school desks were fitted with a hole for ink. Students had to dip the nib of the holder into this ink-well of blue or black ink and then struggle away to write few words before again dipping the nib into the inkwell. The writing was a good mental exercise which used to activate mind and body as well.
This was a very arduous process; but this process produced Dickens, Kipling, Shaw, Tagore, Prem Chand and Radhakrishnan ---dip and write, dip and write, for days and weeks and months and years. People were very careful about handwriting, grammar, spellings and punctuation so that the compositor (in the case of an author) or a teacher (in the case of students) can understand what had been written. But computer and smartphones have killed this mental exercise.
Letter writing is the biggest causality of computers and smartphones. There was a time when letter writing was a big art. Letters used to discuss families, news, society, politics, geography, weather and what not. the art of letter writing produces some of the best literarily pieces. Letters of Matthew Arnold, Bernard Shaw, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, John F. Kennedy etc., are now big and popular literary books.
Similarly, oven dependence on computers, smartphones and calculators has destroyed the mathematical abilities. Now most of the people cannot do the simple mathematical issues without the help of calculators. People are almost mentally crippled.
Writing skills makes a man disciplined and systematic. A person’s personality or the behaviour can be judged by his handwriting. Mahatma Gandhi, Radhakrishnan, Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy had good handwriting and they were great statesmen but the handwriting of Hitler was poor and deteriorated as time went by, his mind and behaviour also so similar behavioural deterioration. Wainwright was a dreaded criminal—notorious serial poisoner, had neat and graceful handwriting, but he was a neat and clean poisoner.
Overuse of computers, smartphones and calculators have also spoiled the art of good teaching and skills of good and meritorious teachers. Good teachers used to teach to write clear and fast. They always used to emphasise the importance of good handwriting. They always told their students to write large and clear letters; don’t compress a lot of words into a small space etc., etc. Good and open handwriting develop an open, organised and uncluttered mind and those poor teachers were very right. But computers and smartphones have made this teaching excellence a thing of past.
Students used to take a lot of pains practising good handwriting and excellence in oral calculations; but now good handwriting and command over mathematical calculations have been obsolete, and now computers, smartphones and calculators are the companions of every student. Even writing helps hand in good shape and oral calculation keeps mind alert.
Now a day, due to addiction to mobile phones, large numbers of accidents are taking place on roads, railways lines and other places. In such accidents, thousands of people lose their lives. Similarly, over-use of electronic gadgets is turning modern youth, indiscipline, very casual and highly ill-mannered. Now a day, campuses of schools and colleges are full of such indiscipline, very casual and highly ill-mannered students, turning campuses as anarchists and chaotic places.
Paper and pencil help in developing creative skills too. It is a very easy method, but pen and paper give physical and mental satisfaction. If one is an expert in writing and calculations, it develops a certain sensuous relationship about this bond, an intimacy that is absent from any other electronic gadgets i.e. computer, smartphones and calculators. It is the feel and contact of the paper, the current of ink, the flow of the pen, the association and intimacy of all three with the human hand and the hand’s union with the mind of the writer. This is all the power of the pen and the importance of the paper. Man’s overdependence and over indulgence with computers, smartphones and calculators have killed this relationship and broken the joint family into nothingness.
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