Farewell to Type Writer

The curve between my index and thump has developed a blackish rough skin. Eight hours of association with the mouse has caused this. The ‘mouse’ which caused my curve blackish is not the cat & mouse, many men, my age, understand, It is the master monitor of the computer.

Oldies ‘Halda’, ‘Remington’ and Godrej, my archaic companions of bygone time, have now made a slow fade from my mind, so also from the world of letters. Nostalgia, pulls me through the by-lanes of the past.

Thak, Thak, Thak, some at 40 wpm, 60 wpm and a few at above that. The thak, thak were the sound of music produced by the supersonic strikes with ten fingers of the typist on the multiple keys of the typewriter. Many still hold the doubt about the name, which one is for the machine and which one for the man. I will now say, both names fit in for both of them, as the man and the machine were one at 9.30 am till 5.30 p.m.

I walk through my memory lane and stops at the Royal Commercial Institute, Kottayam near the Raj Mahal Theatre, one of the two Cenema Theatres of Kottayam, the other being ;Star’, both do not exist now. At ‘Royal’ I learned to place my ten fingers rest on the ‘key board’ of a ‘Halda’ fetching “asdfjkl;” creating “a quick brown fox jumps over a lazy little dog”. It took 45 minutes to complete four lines on the first day of my training. The year 1970.

Type writers are no more, so are telex, cyclostyle machine, tele-printer, Dialer phone, cigarette cases, lighters (these were once part of office) ink pots, pens, pencils, fans, coolers…… and the old pan chewing Manager….. .