Hello
Yesterday I went to buy a pen. I was filled with a sense of pathos...now buying a pen is not all that big of deal. But what use you put the pen to...writing is. I realized how little I had written with a pen in the past 8 or 9 months. I can't remember using the pen to write an article for a long time now, to take down a quote I now prefer saving it as a draft in my mobile. My hand writing has become close to incorrigible.
The very existence of the blog is because people prefer to type and not write. Can typing substitute writing? In a wider sense, can technology substitute everything? I remember the debates about the television substituting the news papers, the internet becoming a threat to news papers...but writing with a pen is fading out.
I use technology as much as anyone else or maybe more...but somewhere down the lane knowingly or unknowingly we have all become very mechanical...
I remember the times when I used to fight with my dad for an ink pen worth 50 bucks when I was in my 5th or 6th standard; Hero pen was the fad then. I clearly cherish the Reynolds 045 with which I wrote my Matriculation and my Plus Two exams. While writing for the Hindu I used to write down the article first and then type it on to a computer, how I used to fight with dad who yelled at me saying I am wasting time doing it that way. Post that all I know is..I used a pen to write my post graduation, by that time a pen had become something to just write exams and to very few. taking lecture notes.
The duty of a pen is now limited to scribbling e-mail addresses, phone numbers and if lucky to have a taste of two lines of literature. Once we are out of studenthood rarely do we use a pen for anything else. Just like we Indians find that food is much more tasty when consumed with our bare hands and not by the spoon...I feel the article when I write it with a pen...be it of any make. To see the article or literary piece how good or bad it is...to see it taking shape in front of me gives me a childish impishness or excitement when I see it finished and ready to go to bed...
I can remember when i first started writing with a pen, in class five, with a hero pen- i was so excited. i used to love the smell of ink on my fingers. irrespective of the fact that my handwriting always has been, and still is horrible, even i miss writing. i remember searching like mad for a piece of paper and a pen to jot down something urgently once. i couldnt find one! i once had to borrow a pencil from a kid! shameful! i used to collect pens at one point of time, so much so that my friends used to call me 'pens ki dukaan'.colourful ink pens, fragrant pens, thin pens, long ones- i used to have them all. and now..now i have borrowed pens..
ReplyDeleteGood that you put this in perspective..
Good one.