I bumped into an old notebook from my university days while cleaning one of my bookshelves. The notebook reminded me that I used to have pretty decent handwriting. It reminded me of our English teacher at St. Joseph's Convent High School, Chittaranjan — Ms Gladys McCrahan. Gladys Miss, as we used to call her, was a pretty strict teacher and took much effort in instilling the habit of writing in cursive, especially when we graduated from pencils to fountain pens. For me, the lesson never wared off even after I shifted to a Bengali medium school. But over time, I kept on trying new handwriting styles, often inspired by friends. There was a point when I was writing straight, rounded letters, followed by a cursive slanted towards the left. Then I experimented with writing words where each letter stood independent, with no trace of trails and tails. However, such adventures failed miserably during exams. So, even though I started answering with upright rounded letters creating each word, I ended up with the regular cursive towards the end of the paper. I often wonder what the teachers or examiners thought when they found such polar differences in one answer paper — maybe they were experienced — not that I was the only student ever experimenting with my handwriting style!
By the time I completed post-graduation, we had experienced them all — fountain pens, ball-point pens and gel pens. I do not remember if use-and-throw-pens had come in vogue by then or not. While I used ball-points and gel pens regularly in class, I relied solely on my ever faithful fountain pen, which I think I had started using sometime before my class ten exams. Mine was simple silver coloured pen. Its nib turned blunt in the initial days of use, resulting in thicker lines, but I loved that. Apart from a couple of more gel pens and ball-point pens, I used to keep a second fountain pen, which belonged to my father. It was one of those which had a golden cap, but I rarely used it. I completed all of my major exams using that faithful old silver pen with a blunt nib.Digitisation robbed me of my handwriting. Nowadays the right arm starts aching badly if I have to write anything for even half an hour. The handwriting is legible, and I have to remain happy with that one point. If Gladys Miss had seen my current handwriting, she must have given some poor grades.