Training my Pencil and Persevering

 Training my Pencil and Persevering !

Dinesh Kumar Kapila

I am at my wits end while repeatedly training my pencil. It just does not want to learn. Try as I might, With patience. Diligently. It’s as  though it is telling me, you damn human,  go take a walk. The pencil, a very humble writing  instrument, well, I and the pencil have a rather chequered history. Mostly the pencil, in it’s real humble avatar, has notched up more victories in this battle of attrition.

Here I am really discussing the Apple pencil, its been tough going, as I scribble away on my iPad. Then I just cannot make out what the words are, my thoughts and words are at a 180 degrees to the actual words on the IPad.  The Pencil has guts, it’s adamant, it just refuses to even adapt. Its stressful and really annoying. And confusing. Junior, Prashant,  an Advocate, uses his pencil and Ipad with ridiculous ease and motivated me to opt for this productivity tool. Now Junior’s hand writing is clearly a notch below mine, but he faces no problems.  

After I write using the Apple Pencil, then I wrestle with my thoughts, even after a few lines. I wrote once GT Road and the pencil thought it was East Ride. If my line of thought is clear, I write away, I just cannot look at what is actually appearing on the IPad, but then later I just cannot make  out about the words are mine. It’s a struggle, like climbing a steep mountain.  I have to restructure my thoughts while grimly saying to myself, this is one tech battle I am going to win. I have to.

Its like my actual handwriting was perceived by some colleagues while in service and leaves a very sour taste. Now take the word, taste, the Apple Pencil wrote tools. Just how could it decipher this! I feel like I am the main character in the Film, How to Train Your Dragon. Countless attempts, and getting no where but hoping nevertheless. And going through a gamut of emotions. Sometimes loud emotions. In colourful Hindi, English and Punjabi and maybe the odd Bengali thrown in too. It’s just a confounded puzzle as I keep plugging away.

This reminds me of my retirement at Shimla, at the function to bid me goodbye, a couple of youngsters let it out with smiles and laughter that they frequently had an informal competition  among themselves to make out my handwriting. Any number of departments would get my views or instructions over the day, sometimes in detail, from my side I was writing very legibly and correctly. But as it appears, this was a positive perception known only to me. About my handwriting.  So the youngsters sitting at their workstations would ask each other about what certain words were. The winner was the one who could decipher my hand writing or certain words. The concerned officer would come down, seek permission to discuss  and mainly focus on  what this word or that word was. As I recollected at my farewell, the questions were to elicit if my words were exactly as they could make out. On the officer’s return, the officer who had actually made correctly what I wrote was the winner !'

I write precisely, this I think I know. Clearly the world and the iPad and the IPad pencils are against me. This saga seems unending as of now and is becoming a sources of stress. Its just like the pain when we computerised decades ago. All the jargon and DOS and what not. But we caught on. Had to. But this challenge I am wary about losing. Harking back to the movie, How to Train your Dragon, I think I will create a template about developing a process. Sometimes our thoughts and words run faster than our ability to write correctly and legibly, maybe Apple should upgrade it’s software to be effective in deciphering the context of the word. And reproducing that only.  

What I write is not Griffonage. Let us be clear. King Bruce failed repeatedly but won ultimately. I the human, have to prevail. The training is on.

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