BY BIKRAM VOHRA
Thanks to all this keyboard communication and the hi-tech lifestyle we have kind of lost our ability to write more than 20 words in longhand.
Also, as we grow older our handwriting changes. This is a scientific fact. it turns soft and becomes a scribble and age impacts on the control factor.
We get cramps. The wrist quivers. As we totter into antiquity the shape of the letters we use morph and change their shape.
This fact was rudely brought home to me today here in India when a cheque I gave was returned because the signatures did not match the original in the bank’s records that are twenty years old. I don’t match myself from twenty years ago why should my signature.
Not just that but it was a crossed cheque and not for a princely sum. Didn’t the bank that loves me so much and has my interests at heart have a staffer who said, oh, come on, no one is going to steal Rs 145 from my beloved customer.
Further, if the bank had acted according to its advertising could someone not have called me and checked if I had issued this cheque for a sum that would not buy a decent cupcake.
Now, I am sitting here practicing my signature in the bank and they won’t show me the original because that is cheating. Damn, does the letter ‘a’ go up or down… give me a clue will you.