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Lessons in beautiful writing

Words laden with meaning will lose their significance if scrawled, but letters written artistically will help the writer convey his/her inner feelings in an effective manner, Anis Siddiqui, a calligrapher from Delhi, said.

Speaking to The Hindu at Chinmaya School, Kasaragod, where he held a five-day coaching camp in calligraphy for students, Mr. Siddiqui, who has won several national and international awards, said letters in all languages had an inner geometry and those who realised it could script it creatively.

Be it English or the Indian languages, letters are based on five basic elements or lines and joining these imaginatively will result in creative writing, he said.

People can use their creativity in writing for their own purposes, be it religious or material, he said.

Mr. Siddiqui, who was on the final leg of his Kerala tour, said he had held calligraphy camps in various schools in the State and the response was impressive. Calligraphy as an art form is not very developed in the State, he said. Compared to northern India, calligraphy is not so popular in the southern parts of the country but he was trying to spread the art form, he said.

Though language posed some problems, students in the State picked up Hindi easily after an initial hiccup, Mr. Siddiqui, who speaks chaste Hindi and a smattering of English, said. The first day of the five-day course is spent in making students understand the basic geometry of letters, he said.

The duration of the classes is four hours every day and the students get work to do at home.

Though Mr. Siddiqui gives lessons using English and Hindi alphabets, he allows students to apply the principles to their mother tongue too.

The basic principles of calligraphy can be applied to alphabets in all languages, he said. Mr. Siddiqui said it was a wrong notion that calligraphy was an Islamic art. Calligraphy as an art form belongs to the whole humanity, Mr. Siddiqui said.

A. Harikumar

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