“Can I borrow your pen for a moment?” I asked my colleague. It took him few minutes to search his backpack full of books, mp3 player, mobile phone, a thumb drive, music CDs, headphone and office ID card to find an old age Reynolds ballpoint pen. I needed to fill up a form manually and then I realized, ‘sheesh’, I could write faster on a key board.

Nowadays, I find it really difficult to find a pen when I need it badly. Moreover, I even find it difficult to write ‘traditionally’. It wasn’t the case seven years ago when I was a student, and a pen was one of my fundamental needs (food, water, shelter, clothing and a pen). I remember running back to my hostel during exam time to collect it. I was sure not to find one, even from my best of friends out there.

So what happened now? I was one of those persons who used to go out in the following manner:

1. Pickup  wallet and check money
2. Pickup my favorite pen and put in shirt’s pocket to show my sincerity
3. Pickup my bicycle’s keys and walkout

Now the sequence is different

1. Pickup wallet and check credit cards
2. Pickup mobile phone
3. Pickup laptop
4. Pickup keys and walkout

Where is the pen? “Well I don’t need it, and even if I do, I’ll find it somehow” I always answer to me.

I did a quick analysis of various scenarios where I always used pen and nowadays prefer to adopt alternate solutions

This is a brief list of scenarios I could immediately think of, and I am sure there could be more. Though I don’t see a major impact in my daily life in ‘absence’ of a pen, I still feel guilty about it. When it comes to writing, I have observed some changes which I would like to rectify. Sometimes my own signature looks fake to me. I feel uncomfortable with the fact that in actual writing there is very little room for rectifying errors. I am overcautious and write slow, as if I am driving my car after ages in midst of a narrow lane.

I have a very high regard for those who write on paper fluently, effortlessly and confidently. Which I feel is difficult to achieve in a digital world, where all your mistakes are being treated as an overlook and rectification is very easy.

Since more and more people are becoming part of the digital ecosystem, I really wonder what will be the future of handwriting analysts, calligraphy artists and all those associated with the written script on a physical sheet of paper. I also wonder, if a person like me who have lost the flair of usage of pen, could be analyzed on various parameters of handwriting to identify personality traits?