Write and wrong

It is, for many of us, our last real manual skill. It was once so revered that the day a child began learning to write was celebrated with prayer. There is a lot we stand to lose, if we let speed, ease and indifference take this from us

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A cheque I wrote bounced recently, because the teller at the bank said my signature didn't match the one they had on file.

I looked at her records, then at the piece of paper I had just signed. She was right.

The new one was lazy, hurried, a smudge of habit. The older one, from years ago, was careful, precise, deliberate. I could even remember practising it.

Back then, it felt like a declaration: This is how I will mark the world. Now, my hand doesn't remember or care. That disturbed me more than I expected.

I grew up in a time when learning to write was not just a rite of passage but an actual ritual. I have a faint memory of my first lesson, at our home in Mumbai. A brass lamp was lit. A plate of rice was placed on the floor. My father held my forefinger and guided it gently across the grains of rice, tracing the first letter of the Malayalam alphabet. My mother stood by, watching.

This wasn't just about beginning to learn how to spell. It was a sacred initiation into language, learning, life. It was our parents' way of saying: You are joining the world now, and words will be one of the ways you make your way through it.