1: Understanding calligraphy and it’s nuances with Prof. Santosh Kshirsagar

Today I have Professor Santosh Kshirsagar with us on Audiogyan, Dean of JJ School of Applied arts. He did his Bachelor’s degree in Applied Art specializing in Typography and Calligraphy, and a Master’s degree in Teaching Methodology from the J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Santosh sir has been teaching art at the undergraduate level for nearly two decades. He is also a visiting faculty member at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay and NIFT. Amongst his most noted work are his typefaces in Gujrati and Oriya for Microsoft Windows XP; these were the first of their kind to be designed in the OTF format. He was fortunate to be associated with Prof Rk Joshi for a decade and he did his type design first on Vinyas. He recently submitted his PHD Thesis to IDC IIT on Handwriting acquisition 1\. What is the difference between typography and calligraphy? Is calligraphy independent of typeface? Can calligraphy be standardised? 2\. Why do you think handwriting is so critical when the world is going digital? 3\. How critical is to learn the language in order to do calligraphy in that language? What’s the role of language? Can language be restrictive for calligraphy? 4\. What are the advantages of knowing calligraphy in regional languages? How does it effect the society at large? 5\. Can you tell us about phonetic aspect of Devanagari script and its relation to letterform? (Special question) 6\. What is the future of calligraphy? How do you see this art form evolving in the coming decades?