Job applications, leave requests, letters to the editor, property sale deeds. If one had to type these out, one had to turn to the local job typist, whose job was once the preserve of a specialist. Every locality had its own typist, whose office was a mere hole in the wall or just a chair and table in the corridors of a building, where he arrived at his appointed time every day and began to pound on those old typewriter keys.
He had to take an appointment with the professional since he is generally swamped with orders. Once your turn comes, you are given a seat next to him and he inserts the original and a copy, with the carbon paper in between and begins to work on the typewriter, glancing now and then at the manuscript, or at the action on the street or answer customers’ queries but all the time working non-stop on the keyboard, but never looking at it. He occasionally stops to ask you to decipher a word on your handwritten manuscript and if he commits a rare typo, he pulls out a bottle of whitener from the draw and carefully applies it over the blemish. While typewriting today is a routine task for everyone, from school children to senior citizens, it was once the job of a specialist who knew how to operate his equipment and had to acquire a qualification to do the job.
In offices too, sending instructions to other departments or making quotations, required the services of the typist. And with the typewriter a part of the office inventory, the typewriter serviceman, with his briefcase full of tools and equipment, was a regular visitor to the premises.
Every locality had its own typewriting institute where one enrolled for junior and senior courses. Students swarmed to these institutes in batches which were conducted throughout the day and worked diligently to acquire their certificates. Students, after the completion of their SSLC, were advised by the elders to engage in “profitable” and useful activities like typewriting.
A common question put students who finished their Class X exams was: “Have you completed your typewriting course?”, for this was once a prerequisite for most jobs. Anyone not enrolling for the typewriting course was considered irresponsible or a wastrel. With young fingers constantly on the keyboard today, the typewriting specialist is a disappearing breed.
vijaysimha@new indianexpress.com