"Who wrote the Indian Constitution?" - If this question was asked to me, I would have straight away said "Dr Ambedkar", not knowing the difference between wrote & drafted.
For long long years, I did not know that a team of experts were involved in drafting of our Constitution. I think my books in school did not make it clear about the team work. I was taught that Dr Ambedkar drafted the Constitution. He led that team and his role is the most significant and that much one knows. But somehow we miss out on other experts.
This being on one side, it never occurred to me to even think as to how the drafted Constitution was put to paper in the final form. As students we were not supposed to think deeper; instead answers were readily available to all tailor-made questions.
We recently bought a book for our library - Hands That Wrote History - where we get to know that the whole draft of the Indian Constitution was written by Prem Behari Narain Raizada!!!!
Anyone that reads this book would be awestruck to learn that Jawaharlal Nehru called Prem and requested him to write in his own beautiful handwriting. Prem was a calligraphy artist who learnt it from his grandfather. He felt honored to be called by the Prime Minister himself and to be ever given a place in history that "Prem's hands wrote the Constitution." He agreed! You won't believe that this book carries details such as the number of nibs Prem had used to write our 250+ pages of Constitution.
Calligraphy is not considered great anymore as most of this work can be easily done by computers/AI nowadays. Yet, handwriting and beautiful handwriting have their own unique space. This book would tell our kids that one would never know when their talent would be recognized and how!!
It surely is an exciting read for kids and also adults.
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