Nostalgia: Emotional bond between man and machine

The typewriter is a fossil of the digital age. Even so, its image conjures up visions of the elegance of an era gone by when its utility was an inexorable fact of life and its presence in offices a symbol of empowerment and at home a flair for writing. Typewriters are virtually history now but they have left behind a legacy the world will take eons to shake off — the ‘qwerty’ keyboard. When Remington adopted the quirky ‘qwerty’ back in 1873, it was said to have been designed to slow the user down as too quick use of the keys on mechanical typewriters would lead to jamming. And remember you could never release them without getting smelly and smudgy ink on the fingers.

Recently, The Guardian revealed that the accomplished actor, Tom Hanks, who loves the machines so much he has over a hundred in his vintage collection, is writing a book of short stories, all reflecting his love of typewriters. The ‘asdfgf’ and ‘;lkjhj’ sequences learners pounded away in typewriter institutes may be a distant memory these days but neuroscientists are convinced that once you are accustomed to using such movement sequences you cannot unlearn them, however arbitrary the sequences may have been. The ‘qwerty’ is here to stay regardless of how fancy or powerful may be the computers and devices we use nowadays with even the condensed virtual keyboards on the mobile phones presenting the 26 English alphabets in the same quirky order.

There is such a deep association between the visual and the mechanical that it may take generations to unlearn this even if devices evolve someday to take in the alphabets in the more natural ‘ABCDE’ order. In the same manner, the typewriter had also become such an instrument of official power, with its user representing a bulwark between the citizen and the government, its imagery as powerful as that of the red and green tapes on the ubiquitous official file. The clunky desktop machines, which used to come out in a standard metallic grey colour from the house of Godrej, had also become a symbol of an India in days when import substitution was the buzzword and the imported brands had to go.

It was, however, the portable typewriter that was the liberating influence in the life of writers and journalists, of course. They came in various sizes and shapes and were best bought abroad where the designer Olivetti was all the rage, its colours and contours so different from the utilitarian Remingtons and Underwoods. It didn’t take China long to try and copy the looks and out came the Flying Fish, half the price and almost as fancy and colourful, except that the plastic keys sometimes tended to come off the metal pointers. Senior journos reaching the age when the teeth start falling off were cruelly likened to Flying Fish by the mischievous media mob, but it just went to show how much a typewriter had become a part of our lives when globetrotting with Team India on the cricket circuit.  

If nostalgia were to grip you, the best place to whet it would be to read the coffee table tome that Godrej brought out — ‘With Great Truth And Regard: The Story Of The Typewriter In India’ — containing delightful tales about typewriters including one about how a crime was solved on the basis of a peculiar broken head of a letter in one machine offering a forensic breakthrough. That reminds me of the time I forgot to pick up my portable from the back of a taxi in Barbados and went through hell for three days until I met the coroner of the island, a doctor from Andhra, who had a strong word with the cops.  In turn, the police, always best friends with the coroner for forensic reasons, put the heat on the taxi ranks and one fine evening the reception at the resort had my favourite red typewriter back for me, delivered by the anonymous taxi driver I didn’t get to meet even to offer him the price of a drink at the pub for returning a precious machine.

Typing right

• 1714 First patented writing machine was made in England but never built
• 1870 First manufactured typewriter was the invention of Malling Hansen
• 1874 E. Remington & Sons purchased rights. Christopher L. Sholes and Carlos Glidden developed the machine with a keyboard, platen and wooden space bar
• 1876 Mark Twain wrote the first ever book written with a typewriter, but there is a dispute — is it The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or Life on the Mississippi
• 1902 First electric typewriter was made by George Blickensderfer
• 1937 Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) founded the Stenographers Guild
• 1990s Indian firm Godrej & Boyce became the world’s largest producer of manual typewriters
• 2011 Godrej stopped making them

GANDHI’S DILEMMA
Technology posed a dilemma for MK Gandhi. He needed the utility of the typewriter in South Africa, but once wrote - “I too detest the typewriter. I have a horror if it, but I survive it as I survive many things which do no lasting harm”.
But then he does write to Remington in 1928 — “Rem. Portable No.61625. I am exceedingly glad to say the machine is working to my entire satisfaction”.