ALAPPUZHA: Some 60 years ago, most unemployed youths enrolled in typewriting centres after matriculation to acquire the invaluable skill, one that opened up major job opportunities in both government and private sectors in metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.
In Kerala too, typewriting centres mushroomed in every village at the time to help young job aspirants. However, with the advent of computers around the 1980s, typewriting centres fell in popularity and were replaced by computer centres where aspirants learnt programmes to bag lucrative jobs.
The localities in Alappuzha too used to be dotted with typewriting institutes. While a majority of them have downed shutters or upgraded themselves into computer centres, AVP Institute of Commerce in Thondankulangara on the town’s outskirts, still teaches the age-old skill of typing.
That’s not all, the institute also serves as a museum of typewriters, the lone one of its kind in the state. On display are 64 typewriters, of varying sizes and for different languages.
“I established the museum in the memory of my father V Parameswara Iyer, who set up the AVP Institute in 1946,” said P Venkitarama Iyer. He said with the advent of computers, the legacy of typewriters was almost lost as typewriting course had very few takers, and a majority of commercial institutes were closed as a result.
“In 2021, I decided to set up the museum. Around 25 typewriters, including the one by Remington that my father used in 1946, were put on display. Later I started gathering more machines. Now, the museum has 64 different typewriters – built by companies like Royal, Adler, Smith Corona, Oilvetti, Kovac, Hermes, Olympia, ALL, Godrej, Facit, Hald and Honee-du,” Iyer said.
There are electric-electronic typewriters that date back to different periods in the 20th century and having English, Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi, Arabi and Swiss characters. Cyclostyling machines, which make multiple copies of a document using a stencil, and a bed type old computer, claimed to be the first-of-its-kind in the state, are also on display.
“There is a Remington-16 model with a right-hand line-space lever used by my father, who died in 2001. My father bought the second-hand machine in 1946 when he started the institute. It still works. Right-hand levers were used in older machines. The Remington-16 was manufactured in 1934. Almost all typewriters in the museum, despite their old age, are in working condition,” Iyer said.
Gowri Parvathi Bayi of Kowdiar Palace in Thiruvananthapuram donated a typewriter that was used in the palace to the museum last year. Former vice-chancellor of Kerala University Dr B Iqbal too recently donated a nearly 50-year-old typewriter that he used, he said.
In 1949, the AVP Institute was relaunched as AVP Institute of Commerce and there was a time when 420 students attended typing classes in batches from 4am to 10pm on 42 machines. The institute still offers typing lessons and two students are studying under Iyer, who secured a higher degree in typewriting examination.
“Entry to the museum is free. My aim is to increase the number of typewriters to 100 before April 10, 2027, the birth centenary of my father,” Iyer said.