From Cane Pen and Lime Ink on Wooden Tablets to Digital Tablets with Stylus
It was a quiet evening in the hills of Uttarakhand. The fading sun cast golden hues over the terraced fields of Lwani, a small village tucked away in the lap of nature. Birds chirped softly, and the sound of cowbells echoed faintly as a middle-aged man sat on the porch of his ancestral home, talking to his niece, who was scribbling on a tablet with a stylus.
“Chachu, did you always study on tablets like me?” she asked innocently, looking up from her device.
The man chuckled. A deep, hearty laugh full of memories.
“No, beta,” he said, eyes twinkling with nostalgia. “I began my journey on a very different kind of tablet — not digital, but wooden. Let me tell you a story — my story.”
“As a child,” he recalled, “I used to carry a wooden tablet, known as a takhti, to school. My pen was a thin piece of cane, and we used lime ink made at home. It was thick, white, and had a distinct smell. You had to write slowly, carefully — the takhti had to be cleaned every evening and re-coated with a paste of chalk and clay.”
His eyes softened as he remembered his grandfather, who would hoist him onto his shoulders and carry him to the small school near the temple. The school had no benches, no fans — just mats on the floor and a blackboard that had seen better days. But there was joy — pure, unfiltered joy — in learning.
Then came a turning point.
His father, a soldier in the Indian Army, once came home on leave and found him playing in the mud outside. Curious, he asked, “Why isn’t he in school?”
Granny laughed, “Aaj school jaane ka mann nahi hai. Kal se bhej denge.”
That evening changed everything. His father made up his mind — the boy needed a better chance at life. And soon, he was taken to Bareilly, a nearby cantonment city.
In Bareilly, everything felt new — the streets, the clothes, the language, even the smell of the classrooms. Here, he was introduced to the pencil, paper notebooks, and printed textbooks. His world expanded.
As the years passed, he graduated from pencil to ink pen, then ink pen to ball pen. His handwriting matured, and so did his dreams. When he entered high school, people started talking about a magical machine called the computer. “You can write code,” they said, “and the machine obeys!”
He learned BASIC programming, writing simple loops and calculations. It felt like opening a door to another universe.
Then came college — a time of ambition and distraction. He still wrote in diaries and notebooks, but slowly, his fingers became more familiar with keypads than paper. The basic mobile phone became a part of his life, and with his first job came his first smartphone — a Nokia, strong as a rock, and smarter than anything he had held before.
With it came emails, chats, and the slow fading of the art of writing. His pen rested more and more, as typing took over.
Time flew. He got married, had a child, and watched the world transform. Classrooms now had smart boards, and children walked into schools with digital tablets instead of slates or notebooks.
And then, something unexpected stirred within him.
One evening, while helping his child with homework — filled with QR codes, e-books, and virtual classrooms — he realized how far he had come… and yet, how much he still wanted to learn.
He decided to return to school — as a student. Enrolled in a postgraduate course, he was back to taking notes… but not in a diary. This time, it was on a digital tablet with a stylus — fluid, sleek, and smart.
As he finished his story, his niece looked up, wide-eyed.
“So, Chachu, you used to write with lime ink?”
He laughed. “Yes, and now I tap to save my notes to the cloud!”
She giggled. “That’s so cool. Your life is like a movie!”
He smiled, watching the hills slowly melt into the night sky.
“I guess,” he said, “I’ve been lucky. I didn’t just study evolution in books. I lived it — from lime ink to digital ink.”
And somewhere deep in the heart of Lwani, a little boy with a wooden tablet smiled too — proud of the journey he had made.