Constable Calligrapher

Between duties,P P Shymalan takes out time to write,in style.

In between receiving a message about an accident at a busy intersection and another about a burglary,P P Shyamalan,Head Constable with the communication unit of the Delhi Police,takes out his notepad and pen and writes a line,skillfully curving the loops in the alphabet.

Shyamalan is not a trained calligrapher,but seems to be marking out his name in the long-forgotten visual art form. Most recently,he made an entry in the latest edition of the Limca Book of Records for writing Wish You All The Best in calligraphic style on the envelope of a greeting card in 45 seconds. He has written the line on 80 such greeting cards in less than an hour. His next aim: a place in the Guinness Book of Records,for which he is practising every day to be able to write Best of Luck in calligraphic style in 10 seconds (thats 110 greeting cards in an hour).

Forty-eight-year-old Shyamalan was introduced to calligraphy by his mother when he was a fourth grader in Chalikkavattom,his village in Ernakalum district,Kerala. She wanted to make sure that I properly rounded off the loops in the Malayalam alphabet,which is anyway quite rounded, says Shyamalan.

When he came to Delhi in 1982,for seven years,he did no calligraphy. In 1989,when he was transferred to the communication unit,Shyamalan returned to writing,this time in English and by learning from different kinds of fonts in newspapers,websites and books. Today,he can write in 12 calligraphy fonts.

Shymalans hobby has made him popular among his colleagues and his cursive writing is sought after when they have to submit a leave application. The applications written by him are never rejected. Or so my colleagues say, he says. Till the Commonwealth Games began late last year,Shyamalans writing figured on the identity cards of over a 1,000 Delhi Police personnel. Last November,he held an exhibition of his greeting cards at a Kerala school in Vikaspuri. There were a 100 cards on display,each for Rs 10. The sales were donated to an orphanage, he says.

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