“Your handwriting looks beautiful but I can’t read it,” a friend once told me when I wrote her a letter. She isn’t alone. If I had ten rupees for every time someone has told me that, I’d have enough for a cup of Subko coffee. Which, decidedly, isn’t a lot, but it’s odd that it has happened so many times. I have switched to typing out most of my personal correspondence now. It’s a sign of the times — I may very well belong to the last generation of Indians who can read and write cursive. We were taught in school. For two years, we had classes led by Guinness World recordholder Jugal Chandra Kundu, who taught us handwriting and calligraphy in both Bengali and English. I enjoyed these classes immensely; they were a respite from the rat race towards competitive exams that passes for high school education in India.

Even now, I enjoy the meditative act of cleaning, refilling, and writing with a fountain pen. I love the ritual of choosing one from my rotation of pen: several Lamy Safaris in matte black, red, and white; a Waterman Carene with a gold nib my mother gave me when I was nominated for the Mogford Prize; a Parker Frontier which has been with me since high school; and my workhorses — a clean, clinically precise Lamy CP1, and a wet, decadent Kaweco Perkeo that glides on the page. These are not the most efficient writing instruments, but what they lack in efficience, they more than make up for with elegance.

They are also relics of a more tactile world: when people spent most of their time in the real world. A world of manual cars, mechanical analogue watches, paper maps, radios, film photography, physical books, newspapers and magazines, and printed boarding passes. This was a more tangible world, a more tactile world, a more “real” world that you could experience with all your senses, that you could touch, smell, and even taste (bite into a corner of an issue of Vogue, GQ, or Architectural Digest and you’ll know what I mean). As our lives move online, this is the world we are leaving behind — the world we are losing. But what does it mean in terms of culture?

We now live in a state of hyperreality, where simulated versions of reality appear more authentic than the real itself. The term was first used in this context by French sociologist Jean Baudrillard in his work ‘Simulacra and Simulation’. Baudrillard described hyperreality as “the generation by models of a real without origin”. When he introduced this concept in 1981, it was considered provocative and controversial. Now, hyperreality has become an intrinsic part of modern life.

The world has become more hyperreal as more and more things have become digital: the most used maps today are not physical maps but simulations of one; the boarding passes we use to travel are also increasingly online simulacra of their physical paper counterparts; our clocks and watches have become skeuomorphs of their former corporeal selves. What’s disappearing with them is not only real-world utility, but a particular relationship between body, mind, and environment.

It would be easy to frame this as simple nostalgia, a lament for lost skills in the face of progress. But physical objects anchored us to the real world in a way their digital counterparts cannot. Navigating a paper map, driving a stick-shift car, winding a mechanical watch, writing with a fountain pen — these skills and habits increased our spatial awareness and made us more mindful of our bodies, actions, and environments. Once, these essential skills taught us how to be present in the world, pay attention to its ordinary beauty, and live within it. As we lose these skills, we are also losing our place in the world — and the world itself.

If you enjoyed reading this, here’s more from Homegrown:

‘The Disappearing Hand’: A Documentary Mapping India’s Eroding Craft Ecosystems

‘Silent Cuisines’ Documents The Disappearing Foodways Of Gujarat’s Adivasi Communities

Kolkata’s Disappearing ‘Rowaks’ Once Shaped A Culture Of Conversation