The Century Times

….tirkit taara ….tirkit taara…. let’s type! But Pappu can’t type, saala! Yes, Pappu can network on several social media websites, Pappu can play online MMORPG games, Pappu can forward several emails to his friends with a click, Pappu can chat live, Pappu can scan news from various online newspapers & magazines, Pappu can enjoy music & video online, Pappu can download files, Pappu can upload files too, Pappu can blog on his favourite blogging platforms, Pappu can scan images, print files to printer or flash drives, etc. etc…. Pappu is a master of his P.C. …but eh! Pappu can’t type! Yes, पप्पू टाइप नहीं (कर) सकता !

Unbelievable, but its true and applicable to many of us internet freaks! I dunno about you but I am the one who belong to the unfortunate group of these Pappus . I still don’t know how to type! Its really very unfortunate. Infact not knowing to type is equivalent to being a handicap in today’s world of keyboard communication. Despite this we don’t take it too seriously to cure it. Perhaps most of us are ignorant of this ailment of ours and don’t pay any heed to the symptoms.

I too realized it as recently as last month when I was chatting with a friend on gmail’s chat client. While chatting I observed the colour before my friend’s user-id changing from green to orange (when I was typing) and then back from orange to green accompanying an instant reply from my friend in a flash. And that particular reply was not a single word or a mere liner but a complete paragraph comprising well over 30 words! No, it was none of those copy-paste tricks as every word of it was very relevant and personalized. It was a real quickie. It was my first online encounter giving me the first hand experience of expressions taking form at the speed of thought. It was amazing! I couldn’t hold myself to ask my chat-partner about her typing speed and pat came the reply “65 words per minute”. I was simply floored.

I started calculating  as of how much I can save on my typing time per day if I could type at that pace. Of late, I’d been wondering about my constantly increasing allocation of time for replying to the ever increasing numbers of incoming emails, chatting, writing blog posts & answering comments plus doing several other more important tasks. Instead of finding any solution to it, I’d been trying to manage time by fewer & shorter replies to mails, blogging less often and returning answers to text chats by voice chats, …all these I never wanted to do but was compelled to. But now a solution to these never ending trauma seems to be in sight. Learn to type and increase its speed. Simple enough! I wish it was that simple but its not. Learning to type requires more than a disciplined approach, a persistant effort and solid committments. I’d tried and failed several times earlier too. (Recently I was surprised to notice a mention to it while reading my first ever blog post).

My friend who type @ 65 wpm is not a typist or a computer operator. She was taught typing at a young age when she was still in her eighth grade.Ever since then typing comes to her naturally as writing with pen & paper to me. (She confesses that she hasn’t used a pen for past many years now!). Can you realize how annoying could it be to her if you chat with abnormally slow speed gazing over the keyboard, looking for the right key to hit?     Well, I immediately blocked her chat id from my list to save this annoyance till I learn to type at least half her speed.

Curiously, I started inquiring about the typing speeds of other chat friends. To my surprise, none of them were satisfied with their own speed. One friend suggested to use an Orkut Application called Type Racer. But I found it good only for testing speed and not for actually learning to type. For speed test too, it requires 100% accuracy to complete it, which I am not looking for right now. When I asked this well-wisher about her score on this orkut application, she confessed that she too din’t fare well on it. Anyways, I ain’t looking to put up my name on the front page leader board of play.typeracer.com .

Though I have quiet a decent typing speed, I can’t do it with my eyes off the keyboard. A person’s eyes should be on the display screen while typing and not on the keyboard. I cross-checked it by observing that when writing on paper, my eyes are on paper and not on the pen-tip. Its similar here too.

But it was difficult for me to believe a childhood friend confessing that he too can’t put his eyes off the keyboard while typing. How strange! I remember my college days when I’d set up my first business. He was my partner then. And when we purchased our first typewriter, he was the only one in my entire circle who could use it. Whenever I needed to dispatch any official letter, I used to run to him for getting it neatly typed. And now the same friend says he can”t type! What more, he has put in several months of practice, but he is still on the same page as me. Hard luck, man!

Well, all these implied that learning to type will not be a hot cake for me. I’m already using wrong fingers for the keys. So I first need to unlearn what I already know. And this is the most difficult part. So I checked several typing tutorials and software to start with. Animated images of aqua life at Rapid Typing caught my fancy and I downloaded the same for practicing. But as I keep switching on several systems, I shifted my practice sessions to the web-based Typing Web. But onlookers & visitors at my office started questioning about why I am learning to type as for them I am the master of computer-world. I just sighed & muttered “Pappu can’t type, saala!“.

One evening I observed a pianist playing some lovely old melodious music at a mall near my home. I just sat beside him and started enjoying the music andsimultaneously observing the movements of his fingers over the keyboard. There was 100% accuracy! I started going there regularly thinking learning to play piano might help in learning typing . But can’t someone create a software which could play such beautiful melodies on striking the right keys on my computer’s keyboard as they did for the piano keys? That will surely make learning typing easier and a fun for me.

But one evening I got a bit late to reach that mall. Pianist had already left. But he had put his piano on auto-play mode. I started observing the keys moving down & then up automatically with the music. Now imagine what was mind thinking about .

Well, the latest operating system, Windows Vista, has in built Narrator which can read you all the internet pages, Tablet PC Input Panel accessory enables you to use your handwriting or an on-screen keyboard, writing pad or character pad in Windows Vista can convert your handwriting to text and voice recognisation software can convert your speech to text.  For if these was not enough, Microsoft has decided to come up with a new version of Windows by January, 2010 and God only knows what more it will bring along!

So till the time I learn to type, this world will declare it as an archaic & outdated skill! So friends, do we  really need to learn typing? What if Pappu can’t type, Pappu can communicate better without it :)  …tirkit taara, tirkit taara……..

Technorati Tags: Type, blind typing, touch typing, typing