Raksha Bandhan

I. THE SCHOOL-GIRL

Rakhi was celebrated all over India on the 13th of August.

That day, I received a call from Kukky, all the way from Etah, a small town in U.P., reminding me to get the Rakhi sent by her, tied on my wrist.

Kukky is my Rakhi-sister.

Way back in 1975, after my training, I was posted to Etah Branch of my Bank. I was undergoing training at Mumbai (then Bombay) when the posting order came. I sent a telegram (Telephone was a luxury in 1975, and STD, not to speak of mobile phones, was unheard of at that time!) to my recently-acquired wife, informing her about my posting. On receiving the news, the two parental families went into a huddle, jointly searched for the place and could locate the small town only in an enlarged map of Uttar Pradesh! It is located about 85 KM from Agra. The wife joined me a little while after I reported at the place.

(By the way, when I received my Posting Order, my friends told me that at Etah, I would get one potato for breakfast, two potatoes for lunch and three for supper! A lot of potatoes are grown and sold cheap at Etah. However when I did join there, we got not only good and cheap potatoes but good and cheap fish as well. Local people preferred fish with fewer fishbones as these are easier to eat. So fish with more fishbones were sold cheap. It is known that the more fishbones a fish has, the tastier it is! For example, Hilsa, full of fishbones, is very very tasty - and more costly.)

(At that time, Etah District was infamous for docoits. During our stay, one notorious dacoit named Amar Singh was killed by the police in an encounter. He was stripped and his naked body was placed atop a tree for people to see him. Throughout the day, a stream of crowd thronged the place to see the body of the dreaded docoit, who had spread terror in the hinterland of the district. I too had gone to see his body .)

The building in which we were staying, accommodated a couple of more families. Kukky, who had at that time, probably just entered her teenage, was the daughter of our neighbour. The wife and this pig-tailed school-going girl became buddies and confidantes in no time. And coming to know that I have no sister, Kukky started addressing me as bhaiya (brother) and tying a Rakhi on my wrist on Rakhi Purnima every year.

I was transferred from Etah after 3 years but the relation continued even after that and for the last 33 years, she has been sending Rakhis to me every year, regularly and uninterruptedly.

She was a school-girl when I was at Etah and I still call her ‘school-girl’. Literally, she continues to be a school-girl because after finishing her education, she has been running a school! She started it as a Kindergarten which has by now grown into a High School with about 2000 students including her own son. In spite of her protests, I still call her a school-girl.

In 2002, when I was working at Hyderabad, we had visited her and her school housed in a well-planned and impressive building with a beautiful lawn and garden.

After I retired in 2009, she told me that had my place been at or near Etah, she would have requested me to be her Financial Advisor as she badly needed a reliable person for this.

II. THE SNAPPED RAKHI

This is the story of another Rakhi-sister of mine with whom I came in contact, also when I was at Etah. We were returning from Delhi by bus to Etah. It was a six-hour journey. Such journeys were common in those days. At the Inter-State Bus Stand at Delhi, this girl, whom I shall now call Anjana, was introduced to us by her brother (not known to us). She was traveling alone in the same bus. He requested us to take care of her in case of need. We agreed. During those 6 hours, the wife and the girl became very friendly and we exchanged our addresses. She belonged to Dehradun. Afterwards, the lady and the girl wrote to each other regularly and in the process, she started sending Rakhis to me every year.

When my transfer from Etah became due, she invited us to visit Dehradun and stay with them for a few days. By that time, Daughter I had already arrived. The three of us visited them and stayed with them for about 4 days. The family included her father, (She had lost her mother early.), her elder brother and her younger sister. We found them to be very loving people. They were very good hosts and took good care of us, particularly the baby. Her younger sister used to take us for a walk daily after dinner. She suggested to us to visit Missouri which is nearby and accompanied us during the trip. Till now, we remember our comfortable stay with this well-knit family.

Our contact continued even after we left Etah. Then she got married and may be, on account of her increasing responsibilities as a daughter-in-law, the correspondence dwindled, Rakhis became irregular and then stopped arriving. We also decided not to bother her anymore.

In 2001, I was posted to Lucknow. During our stay there, we once visited Nainital for a few days. At Nainital, we were told that Dehradun was not far away. The sweet old memories about Anjana and her family got reawakened, we decided to visit her house at Dehradun and meet her parental family. At Dehradun, we found their house after a little search. Only her brother was there. He remembered our visit and was happy to see us again. From him, we came to know that Anjana’s daughter’s marriage was to be solemnized in a few days. We collected her address, telephone number etc. and left.

Back at Lucknow, we sent a small gift for her daughter on the occasion of her wedding, furnishing our address and telephone number. We waited for a few days for her to call back. She did not. To make sure that the packet had reached her, I called her residence. She was not available and the lady who received my call, promised to convey the message to her. We waited for the return call. It did not come. So I called again, a little worried whether the packet was lost somewhere. The same person received the call, informed us that she had conveyed my message to Anjana and that the packet had indeed been received by her. She again promised to tell Anjana that I had called.

I am still waiting for her call.

Real Men Cry and The Best Man

Here is a sequel to my earlier post about moist eyes at the time of bidding farewell to the darling daughter after her wedding.

It is a reproduction of the matter from another newspaper-clipping which I have pasted, along with the other paper-cutting, on the inside cover of the wedding album of Daughter I.

Hidden inside the woman,

Is a little girl;

Your little girl.

You’ve watched her grow,

From pigtails to jeans, to sarees.

She’s made the last twenty-one years ,

Seem like twenty-one weeks.

And now,

Another man is laying claim,

To her attention.

You don’t know whether you are happy,

Or jealous.

This is the time,

To reinforce your position as,

The Best Man in her life.

!!! :)))))))) :((((((((((

Real Men Cry

A son is a son, till he gets a wife;

A daughter is a daughter for life.

I do not know when and where I had read these lines but my two daughters have proved this to me. Here I must hasten to add that I have not had the scope for personally experiencing whether the first line is true.

In olden days, when girls were not leaving their homes till marriage, they were weeping bitterly while leaving for their husbands’ homes after marriage. So much so that in Odia language, there is a rich stock of lyrics called kandana geet (weeping songs) containing how girls cry at the time of parting for their bridal homes. These were genuine expressions of sadness at having to leave the protected life and environment in parental homes and going to an unknown place, the husband’s home, full of strangers and an uncharted sea. They were not mentally-equipped to face unknown people. However now a days, more often than not, girls have to leave their parental homes in early teens for their education and later, have to live away to take up jobs. So, at the time of marriage, girls no longer weep or cry though they may be feeling a little sad and sobbing a little, at having to leave the loving parental family and having to loosen the umbilical chord. Hence kandana geet has become only a nostalgic part of the history of folk lore in Odia literature..

When the ceremonies accompanying Daughter I’s wedding were over and the time came for bidding her good bye, my eyes became moist.

Sometime after that, I came across an advertisement put up by a well-known Textile House manufacturing design-sarees. It contained a couple of beautiful pictures of a wedding scene and a few lines which are reproduced below:

Like a million

Fathers,

You knew

From the moment

She was born,

It was to happen.

Like a million

Fathers,

You thought,

You would be

Prepared

For it

.

It’s okay,

Real men cry.

My eyes became moist once again, reading it.

I went through the same experience at the wedding of Daughter II, although I had really thought that I was prepared for it.

From Kashmir to Kanyakumari to Lost and Found and Nano

Like other Organisations, my erstwhile employer-Bank has a system of meeting Leave Travel Expenses of its employees. It is called Leave Fare Concession (L F C). I had availed myself of our first LFC for a trip to Kashmir. Daughter I as a toddler; the wife and my mother had accompanied me.

Just before retirement in 2009, we decided to avail ourselves of
last LFC for trip to the other end of India, that is Kanya Kumari. By that time, my mother was gone and the Daughters had their own families. So only we two traveled. (This reminds me of the fact that when we married, I was a Probationary Officer in the Bank, being posted to different places in India for training in different areas and for exposure to different situations, which we called Bharat Darshan. Getting leave during that period was a luxury and and a daunting task, I had availed myself all of 4 days’ Casual Leave to get married (!) and had to rush back to my ‘On the Job Training’ at the Bank. There was no time for the two of us to travel together anywhere. My would-be-wife's family was perhaps apprehensive that they might lose this eligible bachelor for their darling daughter if they waited.:))))))) The trip to Srinagar was our first holiday together when Daughter I had added to our joys.)

For this last L F C, we left Vishakhapatnam in the morning and flew to Chennai. The connecting flight to Thiruvantapuram (earlier Trivandrum ) was at 4 P M. So we had to spend almost the whole day at Chennai airport. We reached Thiruvanthapuram at about 5.30 P M and checked into our Bank's Holiday Home there.

Next morning, we went to a hill tourist spot called Ponmudi. We drove through dense forest, which was very enjoyable. On the way, there is a lot of rubber-plantation. On reaching the hill, the wife could climb only up to some height. I climbed to the top and while standing atop, felt like the ‘monarch of all I survey’ in the poem of Alexander Selkirk. In the afternoon, we visited Sri Padmanabha Swamy Temple. The temple-rules do not permit anyone wearing trousers and shirts or Salwar Kamij to enter it. Sarees have free entry. So I had to rent what looked like a half-dhoti (like a lungi) for Rs.15.00. I removed my trousers, banian and shirt, and changed into that half-dhoti. I had to be bare-bodied. While in the temple, we saw many girls and ladies draping similar half-dhotis over their Salwar Kamijs. The visit took about one hour. I wondered as to how much money the temple-authorities would be making by renting out one half-dhoti over its life-time!

Next morning, we started for Kanyakumari by taxi. On the way, we visited the beach near Thiruvanthapuram airport, Velli Tourist Village, an art museum, an art gallery and an old palace. The one thing in the palace that amazed us about the palace was the toilets (lavatories) of the King and the Queen. We also visited Kovalam beach. On the way, we visited Suchindrum temple, where I had to leave my shirt and banian in the taxi as these are not allowed inside. I felt funny being bare-bodied with the trousers.

We reached Kanyakumari in the evening and checked into our Bank's Holiday Home there. It is located about 500 metres from the Sacred Feet of Mother India, the confluence of Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. (Kashmir is called the Crown of Mother India and Kanyakumari, her sacred feet, washed by the great Indian Ocean.)

The sun-rise and sun-set at Kanyakumari are simply breath-taking. We stayed there for 4 days and watched these heavenly sights on all these days. Anyone would be floored by these sights. We took photographs of sun-rise, cupping our palms below and over the sun’s image. These photos look great! In one photo, the wife and I are sitting on the stone embankment on the beach with the young sun glowing radiantly in its crimson glory between us!

We visited Vivekananda Rock Memorial, Kanyakumari temple, and Vivekanand Kendra. At the Kanyakumari temple, I had to remove my T shirt and put it on my shoulder like a gamchha, as advised by the prists there. On the Vivekananda Rock, there is 'Sripaada', almost an exact imprint of a human foot on the rock. Legend has it that Goddess Parvati as a maiden did tapasya there, standing on one foot seeking to please Lord Shiva to marry her and the imprint on the rock is that of her foot. Spending time in the Meditation Room of the Memorial has a very soothing effect on one one’s nerves.

We also visited a Wax Museum near Kanyakumari. We took photos with the wax-images of Amitav Bachan, M S Subulaxmi and Mother Teresa. There are images of Mahatma Gandhi, Vivekananda, Rajanikantha, Jayalalithaa and many other celebrities. The wife took a snap with Indira Gandhi. And I had a photo with Saddam Hussain!!!!!! ???????

(By the way, it would be interesting to know that the first lady Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu was earlier spelling her name as ‘Jayalalitha’. On the advice of her numerologist and to please Lady Luck to shine on her, she increased the number of letters in her name by one and became ‘Jayalalithaa’.)

We had a very nice time at Kanyakumari. The primary reason was the vastness of the sea before us. The sun rises from the Bay of Bengal and sets into the Arabian Sea. We savoured every moment spent on the tip of India. Earlier, on one occasion, I had visited Rameswaram, along with my mother and the Daughters. By train, we had traveled along the legendary Setu Bandh laid by Lord Rama. At that time I had thought that Rameswaram was the tip of India!

After returning from Kanyakumari, I remembered the slogan, ‘From Kashmir to
Kanyakumari, India is one’. Having started with Kashmir, we finished at
Kanyakumari.

One reason for my fully enjoying the holidays, which I had discovered during our trip to Andamans, was that while holidaying, I used to wear shorts and T shirts. At Kanyakumari, I have got myself photographed wearing T shirts with markings of 'UNITED STATES OF AMERICA', the White House, Washington and the Merlion of Singapore. These T shirts were gifted to me by the Daughters. When I wear these T shirts, I feel very relaxed and free from mundane things and routine life. The wife calls me 'Old Boy' when I wear shorts and T shirts,:))))))))))))))))

At Thiruvanthapuram, we enjoyed the local delicacy Appam at a restaurant. So we decided to discover how it is prepared. While moving in the market, we found an Appam Pan and I promptly presented one to her. We collected the recipe of Appam first from that shop-owner. Next day, we found two ladies taking lunch in the same restaurant where we were having food. Shedding all her inhibitions, the wife asked them about the recipe of Appam. They were only too happy to share their secret with her.

From Kanyakumari, I have brought a conch-shell as a memento and have been trying to blow it every morning as a part of breathing-exercise.


Now, the ‘Lost and Found’ story.

We had visited Kashmir in May but it was still very chilly. Daughter I, then a toddler of a little over two years, was playing in the hotel-room and the wife went out to dry clothes, asking my mother to keep an eye on the child. I had gone out to book the Return Tickets. My mother was lying on the bed under a quilt. She dozed off. Exactly at that moment, Daughter I decided to explore the world outside and sneaked out. When the young mother returned, she was aghast not finding the baby. The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law duo panicked and ran helter-skelter in search of the missing baby. They ran to the street in search of her. To their utter relief, she was found nearby, crying bitterly. A pious and kindly Sardarji was holding her and was trying to comfort her but she was unresponsive to all his endearments!.

When Daughter I had done the disappearing act, Daughter II (i.e. after she was born) did not want to lag behind. This, she did at a small town in another State, when she was a little older. The four of us had gone to a vegetable-market to buy the requirements. She, who used to always attach herself to her Mama's apron-strings, suddenly went missing. We frantically searched for her and found that she had done an intelligent act. She was clinging to my motor-cycle at the parking-spot!!!:)))))))))) She told us that she waited near the motor-cycle, knowing that we would eventually return to that spot!

That was the time we four used to travel on a motor-cycle, with Daughter I and the lady sitting on the pillion, Daughter II sitting astride grandiosely on the petrol-tank on the front and me sitting in the middle and driving the bike.

Now, this reminds me that Ratan Tata is reported to have conceived of the idea of the small car Nano, when he saw a family of four riding on a scooter, with the lady on the pillion clutching the baby, the Master of the family driving the vehicle and the elder child standing in the front!

An i for an I

Years ago, I had come across an advertisement of Amul Chocolates wherein the cute little Amul girl is featured in a modified version of the Nursery Rhyme ‘Baa, Baa, Black sheep’.

It ran somewhat like this:

Little Maid, Little Maid, Do you have any Amul?

Yes sir, yes sir, full packs three.

One for me, one for myself,

And one for none other than me!

The First Person Singular Number ‘I’ is our most-favoured and most-used pronoun. When someone hands over to another person, a group photograph in which the latter is there, he or she first looks for himself/herself in it, takes a good look, and then only moves to the other faces in it.

And one’s own name is one’s most favourite word.

We are all 'I' specialists.

About a couple of years ago, I came across in The Times of India , a small article by Caroline Winter, reproduced most probably from The New York Times. The writer asks, a thought-provoking question: Why is Capital I used in the First Person Singular?

The writer says that Germans use the respectful Capital Y in ‘You’. The article goes on to say that the Capital I raised its dot-less head first in England. The generally-accepted linguistic explanation, the article states, is that ‘i’ could not stand alone un-capitalised, as a single letter. Charles Bigelow, a type-historian and designer of font families, explains, ”One little letter had to represent an important word but it was too wimpy, graphically speaking, to carry the semantic burden. So the scribes made it bigger, which means taller.”

The writer feels that perhaps our individualistic and workaholic society would be more rooted in community and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of ourselves as the small i, with a sweet little dot!

For that matter,users of e-mail are perfectly comfortable dismissing all capital letters and even correct spellings. The writer suggests: You try an experiment to capitalize those whom You address while leaving yourself in the lower case; it would be an humbling experience.

I feel that the writer has a good point. We write “You, he and I” or “You and I”, in that order. We don’t say “I, he and you” or “ I and you.”. ‘I’ always comes last; ‘You’ always comes first. Then why not always use the Capital Y for ‘You’ and the small i for oneself?

However, we may use the Capital I when it is the first letter of a sentence.

The Times of India has been following this practice in its editorial page.

I feel it is a good idea; i shall be happy to know what You feel about it.

The Feminine Mustaches

I put in 36 years of service in my Bank before superannuating. Out of that period, I served in my Home State for 8 years and the rest of the period was spent in other States in India. Of those 28 years, 16 sweet and eventful years were spent in Bihar, 7 years in places which later became a part of Jharkhand State which was carved out Bihar.

When I was posted to Patna to open and head my Bank’s Regional Staff Training College there, the first problem that I faced was language. Although I had worked in U P earlier, my knowledge of Hindi was not sufficient. Training Programmes for Officers were conducted in English but Hindi was to be used in Training of Workmen employees. While trying to speak in Hindi, I always fumbled when it came to gender.(In fact, I don't fumble; I stumble and fall flat, face down, with a smashed nose!) Unlike in most other languages, verbs in a sentence in Hindi change according to the gender of the ‘subject’. So I used to receive amusing look when I asked, ”Gadi kab ayega?” (When will the train arrive?) The correct way to say this is “Gadi kab ayegi? That is because gadi is feminine in Hindi. In English, both boy and girl ‘goes’ , but in Hindi, ‘ladka jata hai.’ but ‘ladki jati hai’. When a man wants to go, he says, “main ja raha hun”, but when a woman wants to go, she has to say, “main ja rahi hun.” In many other Indian languages, the gender of the adjective is determined by the gender of the noun that it qualifies but in Hindi both the adjective and the verb change according to the gender of the noun.

What saved me was that in the Training College, Hindi Training Programmes were being conducted by the Bank’s Hindi Officer and other Guest Faculty. As far as possible, I used to attend these Programmes. These Programmes were not for teaching Hindi language as such but for imparting to the employees, a Working Knowledge of Banking in Hindi. So I could not still decipher the intricacies of gender in Hindi. All the nouns in Hindi are of either masculine or feminine gender. If I am not mistaken, there is no neuter gender in Hindi. 

Once I asked the Bank’s Hindi Officer to tell me an easy way to know the gender of a noun. He told me, “You always remember one simple formula. You know another name of Goddess Durga is Shakti. Goddess Durga is female. Shakti means power. Remember that whichever noun denotes power, that word is feminine! Simple.” So ‘gadi’ and ‘police’ are feminine. Adalat (Court) is feminine. And ‘Sajaa’ (punishment) also is feminine for the same reason.

Then I reasoned out why ‘muchhe’ (mustaches) is feminine!!!

(And is that the real reason why the word ‘patni’ (wife) is feminine?:))) .


Ever since, while speaking in Hindi, I try to remind me this lesson.

TAIL PIECE

The shakti test applies as a general rule and is not a universal one. In some places,it is said, "dahi khata hota hai" and in some other places, the same expression is spoken as ‘dahi khati hoti hai’ . So you cannot escape slipping !!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Q. What is the other name of 'woman'?
    A. Shakti

   Q. What is the other name of 'man'?
   A. Sahan Shakti (Endurance).

Write Type

Reports say that Godrej & Boyce Ltd., world’s only remaining manufacturer of typewriters has announced that it will discontinue producing the machine for good. For good or bad, it will mean an end of an era.

The last batch of 500 typewriters manufactured by the Company in 2009 is being sold off. All other manufacturers of the machine in the world have already stopped producing it. During the last two decades, computers have been relentlessly pushing typewriters into disuse. Just as computers have done now, typewriters had brought a revolution in writing.

The news brought to my mind a sigh, a sadness that a machine, first manufactured in 1867, is going to become a relic of the past. In a few years from now, it may be seen only in museums. :((((((((((((((

 

The evolution of typewriter was part of the ongoing history the human need for communication. The concept of a ‘writing machine’ was first conceived by Henry Mill but the first practical mechanical typewriter was developed by Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule. E. Remington & Sons and I B M were the first to manufacture typewriters.

 

The thought of writing took me back in the time-machine and my days in the primary school flashed back. Like all others, I used to a carry a flat ink-bottle of thick glass and the very old type long-tailed open pen (without a cap!) to the school. To make ink, we had to buy tablets of ink, put it in the bottle and add the just right quantity of water. We used to carry the ink-bottle separately lest it would spill out and spoil the books and note-books in the school-bag. However careful one was, writing always left the thumb and the fore finger smeared with ink.

In pictures, one would have seen pens made out of quills, the hollow basal parts of bird-feathers, sharpened to facilitate writing. The ancient writers are pictured holding such long feathers and writing with it. It is said that Vyasa Muni dictated the whole Mahabharat and Lord Ganesh wrote it down with a quill.

With the invention of ‘fountain’ pens, quills fell into disuse, like what has happened to the type-writer. These ‘nib pens’ replaced old ‘dip pens’. One had to dip the old-type pens into the ink-bottle at short intervals to get ink at the tip of the pen. Presumably, ‘fountain’ pens were so called because ink automatically flowed like fountains, into the tip of the forked nibs. Lewis Waterman improved the fountain pens. Ink was put into these pens with the help of ‘droppers’, a thin glass tube attached to a tiny balloon made of rubber. One had to dip the dropper into the ink-bottle, first press the balloon to expel the air in it and then release the pressure to suck ink into the glass tube. Then the tip of the dropper had to be put into the 'belly' of the pen and the balloon had to be pressed to drop the ink into it. Some fountain pens had a built-in mechanism by pressing which one could draw ink into it from the bottle.

While writing with the old pens, one had to use blotting paper to soak out the extra ink on the paper. Ink used in fountain pens had quickly evaporating spirit added to it for fast drying up. Sometimes, blotting paper was needed even while writing with fountain pens. Offices were supplied with small devices looking like boats to which blotting paper was fixed. These devices had small handles at top. This device was to be moved like ‘see-saw’ game over the written matter.

Our village-school had only up to Class III. From there, I went, in 1956, to a ‘Middle’ School having Classes IV to VII, and from there, to a High School which had Classes up to XI. I started using a fountain pen in the Middle School. I remember Sulekha brand of ink was our favourite. (When in 2005, I was posted to an Office of my Bank at Kolkata, I was delighted to see near my residence, the establishment of Sulekha Works Ltd., the manufacturers of my favourite ink in my school-days. By that time, the Company had fallen into financially bad days and was trying to survive by manufacturing other related products. Sulekha Company is still a landmark and the nearby bus stop is named after it.) I remember having come across during my college days, an advertisement of Quink brand of inks, ‘Don’t say ink; say Quink!’.

Fountain pens slowly gave way to ‘ball-point’ pens, with ink-paste injected into its refills. It was felt that that the former was rather clumsy compared to its cousin. The rather long name ‘ball-point pen’ later gave way to its shorter version, ‘ball pen’. 

When I joined my Bank, use of ball-pens in writing the records and instruments like cheques and Bank Drafts were prohibited. There was a specific clause in the Account Opening Forms wherein the customer had to undertake not to use ball-point pens in writing cheques. The reason was that forging writings and signatures is difficult by using fountain pens. It so happened that one Branch came under water due to a flash flood in the nearby river. After the waters receded, it was found that writings on all records written with fountain pens had been washed off while those written with ball-pens were in tact! Perhaps due to this reason, writing records and instruments with ball-pens were later permitted.

Till recently, typewriters were indispensable part of an office scenario. Clattering of typewriters completed the office-atmosphere. The cadence of typewriters clack-clacking in unison provided the background music of offices and their replacement by the far softer and almost silent tap-tap of key-boards has qualitatively altered the air of busyness though it continues to be business as usual.In those days, typists were specially recruited for the purpose. Advertisements for recruitment of typists stipulated a minimum speed of 40 for a candidate to be eligible. It meant that the person should be able to type 4o words a minute on an average. Interviews for selection to this cadre were followed by a ‘typing test’. Knowledge of typing was an added qualification for selection of clerks. Expert typists type out the matter by fixing their eyes only on the draft of the matter, without having to look at the key-board.Days are coming when one will not have to touch the key-board of a computer to type something. You will have only to speak or dictate. The computer will catch it and type it by itself.

However, one deficiency of the typewriter was that mistakes, unlike in the case of computers, could not be easily corrected. For striking out some unwanted matter already typed, one had to type xxxxx over them. This spoiled the look. Type-written matter often carried corrections by hand. Sometimes the matter had to be re-typed all over again and again to give it a perfect look. At most of the times, the matter intended for typing had first to be written by hand, and then typed. Now technology offers all kinds of options from spell-checks to completely erasing. This has lulled us to complacency bordering on laziness. There are new kind of problems. Anything 'unsaved' can disappear at the touch of a wrong button. 

It was Frederic Nitze who said, "Our thoughts and feelings are greatly influenced by the writing-instrument." It was from his personal experience. He felt that he was able to express himself better while using a type-writer. Many people do not agree with him. They feel that their thoughts and conciousness are best expressed by writing with a long hand.  

A sentence used in typing-lessons is: A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. This sentence uses all the letters of English alphabet!

Key boards are cited as examples of team work. Even if a single key becomes dysfunctional, the entire work becomes affected. For example: AN –NVEST-GATION WAS ORDERED –NTO THE –NCIDENT –N THE –SLAND. Here ‘I’ is lying horizontally instead of vertically!

Good bye, type writer. : :((((((((((((((((((((((((((