Urdu Calligraphy and the Digital Future

This is an interesting read. The Musalman daily newspaper is created each day by hand. Calligraphers take the day’s news from the editor and translate and write out the news in Urdu by hand. Four calligraphers (called katibs) are writers dedicated to the ancient art of Urdu calligraphy and it takes three hours to create one sheet. One mistake means the page is re-written from scratch. But the paper is facing an uncertain future as the art form is facing a problem with succession when the current crop of katibs retire.

Rob Bushway sent this to me yesterday (he’s off with family this weekend) and said it looks like it is a perfect situation for Tablet PCs. I’m not so sure. I’m wondering if a digital solution works in this case. Certainly it would be more efficient, there would be no argument there. What are your thoughts?