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Samastipur (Bihar):As rain lashed down, 26-year-old land surveyor Deeplal Kumar biked 20 km from Bibhutipur to Samastipur, not to measure plots but for a tough new job requirement a crash course in the nearlyextinct, 1,000-year-old Kaithi script..
Instead of using machines and compasses, civil engineers and surveyors are now back in classrooms,learning to read old documents written in Kaithi to meet the 2025 deadline for the Bihar land survey...
Without learning this, land survey work cant be done on the groundand hardly anyone understands it, said adrenchedKumar,arriving at SamastipursDistrict Registration and Counselling Centrefor a three-dayKaithi training session organised by the Directorate of Land Records and Surveyfrom26to28 September...
Its not a guarantee of fullylearningthis old script, which once ruled the masses and courts, said Pritam Kumar, a Kaithi trainerin his 20s.Hired by the government to hold sessions for surveyors over three months,hes also pursuing his PhD in the script at Banaras Hindu University (BHU). t ..
Kaithi was once far more than just a script for land recordsit appeared infolk songs, temple inscriptions, and even the personal letters ofBihars freedom fighters.But it started declining in the mid-19th century, as Devanagari became the dominant script for Hindi dialects...
