Saturday, December 04, 2004

Handwriting <=> Thought

It was year 1994. I was at Chennai (Madras). On holidays I always liked to enjoy the cool breeze of Marina Beach or hopping through Higginbotham book racks, the biggest book store there at that time. I am a book insect (I call myself the grasshopper, I don’t like worms). I had never seen any such a big book store with the freedom to move, choose and buy facility. At Higginbotham, I felt like the free bird, which can perch on any branch. Oh! There was nothing to sit to read in the store, I did not like it. Standing constantly my legs used to ache after few hours. On other days I had flipped the books of almost all the sections except the astrology and cooking section. I did not have too much belief astrology those days but I like to try. I tried to go through the books of the section. But I pulled the book whose title was handwriting analysis. I pulled the book out. Before I tell the content of the book let me tell about my handwriting. Starting from class II, my Maa was very much concerned with my handwriting. I stood second in my class because of my handwriting. My competitor Dheeraj was the proud owner of beautiful handwriting so every teacher including my Maa used to give him better marks. How much I tried to write nicely, I failed. If I tried to make it decorative my writing speed slowed down. If I tried to write fast, the quality compromised. So like other guys I did not had any so called fair notebook. My fair notebook also appeared like rough notebooks of others. The pattern continued till my last Navodaya days. Handwritng matters for marks, I was sure. In every exam now I guess, I have lost at least 5 percent marks due to my handwriting. I know Maa used to tell me that my every alphabet should be legible. In Bengali she used to call my handwriting as “Kekrar Bekrar Theng” (Like legs of crab).As a punishment she used to beat on my palms few times too, to make me attentive towards my handwriting. May she have got more pain than me at those times. She has a pretty handwriting. He used to give me a fresh notebook for writing a page a day even in my class VI. My every effort failed. Even then my handwriting did not looked nice as my friends. I had a lot of inferiority complexion those days in this matter. Naturally I was looking for the way why his handwriting is nice, why mine is bad. I also write the same alphabets as others do but mine never looked fine. Although the simple answer was write nice then see it nice. But I wanted to know why my handwriting is not going the proper way. My thirst for the scientific reasoning behind the handwriting seemed to end that day at Higginbotham. When I opened the book, It was full of various albhabets of different shapes. It was a jumble of at least 10 types of I’s and j’s and almost every alphabet and so many writing pattern of so many human traits.
I tried to compare my i ‘s my o’s , capitals, slants from my habit of writing and those given in the book. I got my answer. I was much ashamed that day because of the introspection I did with my handwriting. It was just a mirror of my thoughts and my nature in those days. And I did not have much money on the day. Most of the time I did not have tendency to buy the books there but to read the variety of books and most good books were costly. I could not buy the book. Next month as soon as my money from home reached there, I bought the book. So the determination of more than 10 years and availability of such book inspired me to think over my handwriting afresh. At the time my age was 17 years. Changing handwriting was not as easy task, so changing the ego I had. Now I must tell that my handwriting was my reflection of my thoughts most of which was hidden to outsiders.Naturally I was determined to improve myself. My Dadu (father of my mother) is a proud owner of good handwriting too. I will put some of his samples on my website in near future. He always used the fountain pen and he used to suggest us using the same. I bought a fountain pen and started using it. Still since then I prefer to use a fountain pen. I became a child student and the book was a teacher for me. I tried according to the book selectinging the best possible way to write the alphabet suiting the characteristic I liked to be in myself. It was a painful time to change the handwriting so changing my personality. I never believe anything until it is told with good reasoning. The book said that our fingers works according to the signals sent from the brain and it have been observed that there are specific pattern appearing from the specific personality. Every week I used to analyze my handwriting with the book. I was moving towards betterment. I was very much happy on the day when a new friend told “Prem, your handwriting looks nice”. Thanks God, He had not seen my earlier handwritings. Anyway “A word of praise to a hardworker gives wonderful result”--- Jaya. It took almost one full year to change my handwriting fully. But still today I recognize one thing in my handwriting that there is a hidden and basic similarity between my childhood’s handwriting and today.And this hidden pattern can be recognized by any other graphologist only. This basic pattern is the basic nature of one’s personality. Due to which I am a unique personality like everybody else which can never be changed. Fascinated with the subject if I get time, I do help others to show the scope of improvement through the handwriting. I am a frequent visitor of museums and I like to sit on the floors there . Kolkata museum have several samples of handwriting of many great personalities (My analysis : Kaviguru Ravindra Nath Tagore was over secretive to hide his mistakes to add the flow of thought , he used to blacken completely his mistakes). Many a people ask me whether a person having a nice handwriting have a nice personality. Actually what they tell nice may not be nice in our analysis terms. So I tell him “May or may not be”. There are patterns and traits which shows the personality just not the beauty of the handwriting. Any way your handwriting reflects you as a mirror. It certainly reflects your current mood and mental state. And there is every scope to improve it till the age of 25 unless someone is strongly determined to do it after this age too. Many of my friends tried to test me. I told them I can score 7 out of 10 if you bring samples as per the rules of analysis. I succeeded and most of the time I got distinction. A Few times I could not. It was easier for me when I know whose handwriting sample it is. In contrast it’s difficult and satisfactory, when I don’t know whose handwriting I am given. 3 years ago when I used to reside in Siliguri, one of my Nepali friends brought a notebook of some of his friend from his institute and told me to analyze it. I took two hours for it and I told him the characteristic of the person. He told me that I was correct and he became disappointed. The reason was the person was opposite to my friend’s nature. I asked about the person whose sample he brought to analyze. The person turned out to be a girl reading in his class and to whom he wanted to propose !!