Pen and Paper

It's been a couple of years since I have put pen to paper to do some meaningful writing. Usually, it has always almost exclusively been only to put my signature on different kinds of papers. But long, meaningful writing seems to be as distant a memory as childhood. Actually it has been much longer than just a couple of years since the last time I was doing silly things, like using a non-electronic stylus on a paper based medium, on a regular basis. That must have been in college though my memory can't really be trusted in this matter. But I do remember that as kids we were taught to write using those primitive implements and I guess my experience today is the justification for that initiation into that ancient art form.

Even as I am sitting here trying to recollect what little I remember of that ancient skill called 'writing on paper', I am wondering at the wisdom that our elders displayed way back in time because they could clearly see that there would come a time when our modern electronics would fail but our need for written communication wouldn't cease and that this manual method would then stand between us and utter despondency. Of course, the fact that they didn't have all these funky electronics back in the day might also have been a factor but I am not inclined to think so. That sort of negative thinking spoils the whole quaint nature of the thought.

What can be more quainter than me sitting in candle light, ball-point pen in hand and furiously writing on a white paper with black lines? Like you might have guessed by the reference to the candle light, I am sitting here in the small oasis of that light because there has been a power failure and because two unrelated incidents, my laptop battery running dry and me getting a thought, happened to happen at the same time, I am writing all this down on paper. And all this while, I thought I was on the vanguard of the paperless era!

Goes to show that, just like world-wide nuclear disarmament, zero green house gas emissions, world peace and the Indian public supporting something other than cricket, the concept of a paperless world is just that, a concept. Something to be bandied about and used to look and sound modern and forward thinking but fated to forever being nothing more than a concept. Anyway, I don't have anything against using paper. And since in this instance it is the only way to make sure that the few and far between thoughts in my mind, which are currently coming out in a rush, still remain my thoughts, I am actually glad that we have this still with us. The surprise, of course, is not that I remembered to use a paper to note all this down but the fact that I still remember how to wield a pen.

Incredible as that may seem, the sad part is that I have to type all this again so that I can put this up on Noodle House. That's a definite drawback.