Now, software to decode Tagore's handwriting

KOLKATA: What lies under the doodles that Tagore was so fond of scribbling in his manuscripts? Before long, it may become known whether they were mere spelling errors or words that the Nobel laureate didn't want his fans to read. The Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is presently developing a software that will allow a peek into what lies below the doodles. This is not all. The software will analyse Tagore's handwriting and help in studying his style of handwriting. It may also help to ascertain whether a certain manuscript or letter is original.

"A lot of studies have been carried out on nearly all facets of Rabindranath Tagore but no efforts have been made till now to analyse his handwriting scientifically. For instance, there is a distinctive style in which he wrote the Bengali letter 'A'. The Bengali letter 'N' was also unique. If written separately, it was not recognizable but when used in a word, he would write it in an interesting way, without lifting the pen from the paper. There are characters that he wrote in a very different way as compared to others. There was a distinct right slant to his writing. His style of cursive writing has been emulated by many writers but no efforts have been made to carry out a scientific study. We are trying to do just that," said Prof B B Chaudhuri, head of the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Unit, ISI.

According to him, the software will have the capability to 'clean' the doodles and find the original writings below. It would also recognize the handwriting and be able to separate lines, words and even individual characters. Though its use in forensics is not being considered at the moment, the software would be able to ascertain whether a certain manuscript or letter was actually written by Tagore.

But would this software help in knowing a bit more about Tagore's character through the use of graphology? Chaudhuri said that graphology is considered a pseudo-science though it has been around for nearly 500 years. "It would be difficult to say whether this would be a correct assessment as this is something that has no scientific proof," the professor said. However, the software may be able to do some back engineering. Some of the originals of Tagore's works are not available. Only half-tone prints of such writings are available. The software may come in handy to bring out the original from these prints.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/mzdjkue