Holidays are all about handwriting
22 Sep 2008, 0604 hrs IST, Kamini Mathai,TNN

CHENNAI: To most Non-Resident Indians ( NRI ), the winter holidays in Chennai have for years been about Margazhi and music. But now their summers seem to be about handwriting.

NRIs who come to Chennai are now signing up their children for handwriting classes. And the number of children taking the courses has been increasing over the years. The demand for the classes has been enough for Growel Skills, a handwriting coaching centre which has several branches in the city, to actually introduce a separate batch for NRI children this year in July.

"We customized the course for NRIs who were in the city only for a short while," says Mohanakannan, who runs Growel Skills. "It was a condensed version of our regular classes." He says that they identified the need as there were a number of NRIs who used to approach them about classes for their children.

"Their complaints were the same - that the schools abroad laid no emphasis on handwriting that the children were just asked to write. They were just expected to learn it all on their own. The parents also said that they felt India was the only place to learn proper handwriting," says Mohanakannan. He says his NRI classes have a varied age group of children - from fifth grade to the eighth. "It's not just the NRIs based in America, they come from all over the world during the holidays to send their children for handwriting courses. We've had and still have children from Singapore, Malaysia, England and the Gulf too," he adds. Mrs KC Abraham, whose eight-year-old grandson Reuben Mathew attended a workshop last summer, says he did the course during his summer break.