A very warm good morning to everyone.

Respected speaker sir/ma'am, Today i stand

here in front of this august gathering to wholeheartedly speak for the motion o
f the house.
Handwriting : The power of expressing oneself on paper. I wonder if we have lost
our sight on the way. Handwriting is indeed a medium of expression. So i would
like to stress upon the very fact that the expression should matter more than th
e medium.
To say that one is being marked extra for better handwriting is to say something
like: one should be perceived as a better individual for dressing up in fancie
r clothes. But isn't that something we have always been fighting against? Haven
't we always been striving for a more substantial society where the substance on
the inside matters more than the stuff on the outside? A society of simple livi
ng and high thinking is what we all preach. Then why this hypocrisy when it come
s to adding curves and curls to our handwriting? Yes, we should definitely dress
sharp and neat. Going along those lines, sharp and neat handwriting is all we
should promote. If we gave brownie points to students for better thinking, bette
r views and opinions, and better expressions instead, i am confident that we wo
uld all grow up to be a nation of great thinkers and great personalities.
I am very sure that the esteemed members of the opposition bench would like to p
oint out that one of the greatest man to have ever walked this earth, the father
of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, had stressed on the importance of good handwriti
ng. But speaker sir/ma'am, i shudder to imagine a world that judged this great
man on the basis of his handwriting, a world where people like Winston Churchil
l, Lord Irwin, Jawaharlal Nehru and numerous other world leaders, who had receiv
ed hand written letters from Mahatma Gandhi ,judged him on his poor hand. We wou
ld definitely not have been standing where we are today. The greatness of this m
an wasn't diminished due to his flawed penmanship because people recognized the
greatness of his thoughts beyond the mere formality of calligraphy.
Few years back, my father was suffering from an ailment. We searched high and l
ow for the best doctor in the country and ended up in Apollo Chennai. I was a me
re child of 5 years of age and i noticed that the doctor's prescription was high
ly illegible. I was crippled with fear that our search had come to naught. Becau
se obviously, just as my nursery teacher had told me, how could this man be a go
od doctor when he definitely must have got poor marks for bad handwriting? I did
n't have the heart to place my fears in front of my parents when they finally lo
oked so happy and so hopeful with that piece of roughly scribbled paper on their
hands. But miracle of miracles happened and my father was cured! That was the d
ay ,Speaker Sir, that i started thinking : maybe handwriting isn't important aft
er all.
Cursive writing has become almost obsolete in America. Schools in 44 out of 50
states in America have derecognized the requirement of being taught cursive han
dwriting. Yet America hasn't become a backward nation. It is still continuing to
produce great individuals and good human beings.
Of course, i agree with some of my esteemed friends in the opposition bench who
point out that handwriting is an art. We can find art and beauty in every step o
f our lives. To those esteemed friends, i am happy to inform that there are cour
ses in Calligraphy or Graphic Design which they can pursue for their higher stud
ies. But let us not belittle the rest of the world who are better in other field
s and may not have a flair for the arts.
Speaker sir, i am very sure we all cringed when Ishaan Awasthi was yelled at ,
in Taare Zameen Par, for his bad handwriting. And we all clapped when Aamir Khan
in the form of Ram Shankar Nikumbh, saw his potential and came to his rescue.
I wonder if there is a Ram Shankar Nikumbh in each and every one of us. I wond
er if we can rise above and look beyond hasty scribbles and recognize the poten
tial in each and every student.
I dream of a progressive society where emphasis is laid upon forming better hum
an beings, better characters, better personalities. I dream of a society where w
e are taught to be people of substance. I dream of a society where i am apprecia
ted for my speech and not my voice, for my intellect and not my looks, for my co
ntent and not my handwriting.