Wednesday, Sep 30, 2026

Pen is indeed mightier

In an age-old Hindu tradition, people perform a ritual called ‘Aksharabyasam’ where children were made to write their first alphabet on the rice grains as their chalkboard

By Telangana Today

Published Date - 23 July 2021, 06:02 PM

Once upon a time, there lived a family of camels. One day, the baby camel asked her mother about its hump, padded feet etc, and their purpose. The mother replied saying how those organs help them to adapt and survive in the desert.

On hearing this, the baby camel was surprised and said, but we have been living in the zoo for so long. Do we still need to adapt that way? Having heard a similar question, “Do we still continue to write everything even though we are living in a technoid era where facial recognition and touch-screen have become the norms of life?” Many years ago Vyasa Maharshi reached out to Lord Ganesha and solicited his assistance and thus emerged our dynamic epic ‘Mahabharata’.

In an age-old Hindu tradition, people perform a ritual called ‘Aksharabyasam’ where children were made to write their first alphabet on the rice grains as their chalkboard. The significance behind this was being the initiation of giving a shape to a child’s thoughts.

When it comes to the physical aspects, when we write, our brain engages itself in a holistic manner and helps in retaining information. Our teachers always said, one-time writing is equal to reading the script 10 times, especially for the primary children, writing develops their tactile functions.

There are receptors in the skin which sense and send information to the brain when we hold a pen/pencil which then helps to store information and become a part of our procedural memory. A teacher can easily help a child, upon observing their handwriting, whether the learning curve is smooth or bumpy, like identifying underdeveloped motor skills for which counseling might help a child to overcome the problem.

Another aspect is that there are plenty of handwriting competitions for kids to showcase their talent and one can even opt for a profession (a graphologist or calligraphist) where your expertise in handwriting can be very accomplishing. Who’s to say your handwriting can’t take you places. The pen is mightier indeed.