They say the signature can turn your life line. In the Tamil proverb, it reads (உண் கையெழுத்து தலை எழுத்தையும் மாற்றும்; or உங்கள் கையொப்பம் உங்கள் விதியை மாற்ற முடியும் ); literal translation: your hand line [signature] can change your headline [fate]. The Indians believe that on the inner aspect of our skull, our lifeline or our destiny is written.
Just like how a game of dice became the change maker of the propriety of a kingdom, with a literal stroke of the pen, a prince can be a pauper. I vividly remember this mantra frequently being uttered by my elders during my childhood.
Early in my working life, I met a colleague who dragged life wearing a perpetual remorseful look and carrying on his shoulders a mountain and guilt and regrets. In his days of naivety when a good friend is one whom one could enjoy a good drink, he had stood guarantor, or rather, inked his signature above the dotted lines certifying what may that he would stand in front of his friend (guarantee) that the payment due to the bank is paid in full. Paid, he had to do, when his drinking buddy decided to go AWOL just a couple of months upon receiving the loan! The guarantor's plea of 'just signing for formality' and 'helping out a friend' was mocked upon by the fat bankers and men in the robe behind his back. Threatened by the possibility of bankruptcy, left with Hobson's choice, my colleague spent a good many years to come out clean off the black list. He paid dearly for his cavalier attitude at the expense of job promotion and providing for the family.
There is a reason why people of yesteryears took plenty of pride in perfecting their signature. They try to make it appear regal and a black ink is usually used to make it authentic. The ink on paper is worth a person's life or a nation's history.It is not a mark that gets washed away by time.
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