When she twice failed to clear her chartered accountancy examinations, Mridula Mathur realised there was something wrong. The culprit, she soon realised, was not lack of preparation - but her handwriting. It had turned into such a scrawl that the examiners couldn't read her answers.

"And when I couldn't read the notes I had taken I consulted a handwriting expert," says the 25-year-old tax consultant.

Mathur's problem is not peculiar. Teachers and other experts believe that increasingly people are facing problems with their handwriting. The fact that many - especially those who constantly deal with keyboards or touchscreens - are writing less and less by hand is creating a slew of new problems.

"Stress coupled with complete dependence on technology is shaking the confidence of a person at a psychological level, which takes a toll on one's handwriting. The number of such people is increasing by the day," says Samayeeta Banerjee, a handwriting expert.

Indeed, gadgets such as smartphones and laptops have drastically reduced the need to write by hand, leading to illegible handwriting.

Arjun Srivastava (name changed), a 37-year-old software engineer at a multinational company in Bangalore, spends some 16 hours in front of a computer screen every day. "I was losing the will to hold a pen and write. It was as if I was unlearning writing," he says. "This led to frustrations and I finally sought professional help," Srivastava says.

It is to address such problems that handwriting institutes are mushrooming across the country. Banerjee, who works with 10-12 adults every month to help them overcome handwriting problems, says that among those affected are software engineers and teachers who write on boards. The former deal mostly with keyboards and the latter write at awkward angles.

Milind J. Rajore, a practising graphologist, believes that people's emotional and inter-personal skills are also getting adversely affected by the large amount of time spent on computers and gadgets."Such cases have increased 30 per cent over the past two years," says Rajore, who runs the Institute of Graphology in Pune. He adds that it can take anything from 40 days to eight months to completely correct someone's handwriting.

Handwriting problems can also arise out of issues such as anxiety. Mohan Bose, founder-director of the Kolkata Institute of Graphology, has come across cases of young professionals whose hands tremble while signing. "Handwriting requires hand-eye co-ordination," he points out. Eyes accustomed to high-speed electronic gadgets fail to co-ordinate with the neuro-muscular movement of hands, leading to the erratic structure of writing, he explains.

Bose adds that even children who play video games can be affected by similar problems.

Handwriting experts and graphologists believe that since writing is also affected by the state of one's mind, it's equally important to be stress-free. Sometimes, they point out, a deteriorating hand can indicate a psychological crisis. Since writing demands neuro-muscular co-ordination, anxiety, depression and other health problems can also lead to illegible scripts.

But often the problem is simple. Lack of early training or practice can easily be dealt with. Sometimes, experts say, a problem can be simply handled by correcting one's grip on a pen or a pencil and sitting posture.

But many youngsters who want to have a script that can impress their would-be employers or examiners are seeking the intervention of experts.

"In business management courses, some assignments require writing and students can lose marks because of bad handwriting," says Ravinder Kaur, teachers' head at Abacus Champs Academy in Delhi, which trains students, including those studying management and engineering.

Similar schools are coming up in smaller cities and towns. Akriti Todi, a trained handwriting expert, teaches correct writing styles in Guwahati. Those who consult her usually have tiny and illegible scripts.

"Professionals such as accountants, doctors and interior designers, as well as school and college students, complain of fatigue setting in after writing a few pages," says Todi who is also the "handwriting teacher" in South Point School, Guwahati.

A good hand doesn't just impress other people; it can also help a person's own development. Todi says the correct way to cross the 't's and dot the 'i's and maintaining a straight line while writing can improve concentration levels in both adults and children.

Writing speed automatically increases with good handwriting, which leads to better and faster performance, argues Krishna Mohta, who has been running a handwriting improvement institute in Raipur in Chhattisgarh for the past two years.

Mohta believes that the root cause of bad writing is the "improper" training imparted in schools. "Indian schools do not teach students the technical aspects of writing - such as the position of one's hand while writing, letter spacing, word spacing and so on," he says.

That's precisely what handwriting expert Priti Mistry has been focusing on with small groups of school students in Mumbai. She teaches children ways to write the alphabet correctly and why a particular letter should be written in a particular way. Mistry says she has seen a 50 per cent increase in the demand for handwriting correction in the past two years.

Experts stress that people are realising that handwriting, despite the proliferation of gadgets, continues to be an important skill.

"Ever since the typewriter was invented, people have been talking about handwriting going out of fashion. But it's still an integral part of our lives and personality and an important identity since no two hands match," says Rafiullah Baig, managing director, Handwriting Institute India, Bangalore.

The demand for handwriting improvement has increased so much that Baig now runs 10 centres in the city and is also training people to be grapho-therapists to cater to the growing demand.

Srivastava, meanwhile, is happy now that he has consulted a handwriting expert and corrected his problem. His pen movement and grasp have improved considerably and his writing is neater.

"The spontaneity of writing has increased and I feel so much better," he says. "I am thinking more smoothly too."