Decoding signatures

In an increasingly digital age, handwriting seems to have taken a back seat. But nearly everyone uses his or her signature for important documents and paperwork. What can someone's signature say about them?

According to graphologist Aditi Surana, the strokes of your hand (writing) are the strokes of your brain. "We all have (brain) patterns that we’ve learnt through experiences, circumstances, from family and close people. These patterns are unique to us and include rooted emotions like fear, aggression, self-esteem, love and happiness."

Most of the complexities in our everyday lives, like the lack of money, troubled relationships and businesses, failed parenting, interestingly stem from these feelings that we unconsciously ignore, she says. "Graphology is a documented science that can be used to assess and provide insight beyond conventional methods, mainly because an individual’s handwriting leaves little room for manoeuvering."

She offers some interesting insights about signatures such as: you cannot create two exactly identical signs, complicated and illegible signatures are much easier to forge, signatures expresses your style of working and sometimes food habits, and people usually have a strong sense to change their signature post major life-changing events.

Surana, who uses the Gestalt and Trait analysis methods along with her intuition to present a personality snapshot, offers to analyse two celebrity signatures for THE WEEK.

Sachin Tendulkar, cricketer

The concave ‘t’ bar shows a high degree of self-control. Anyone with this stroke can follow extreme regimes like diets, workouts and refrain from any addiction, if they choose to do it. The same ‘T’ bar becomes a covering circle in some signature samples. This is like a protective shield. Imagine someone trying to be private or even secretive about his personal life. He really has to trust you to share anything personal with you. A stroke of defiance shows that he cannot put up with hubris and authoritative behaviour. He would either follow what he has decided without arguing about it, or would completely withdraw.

Naseeruddin Shah, actor

Illegible signatures, due to hurry, lack of time or matter of habit, say two things about the writer. First, their high speed of thought—these people generally struggle with slow companions and cannot suffer fools. Second, a paramount desire to achieve their lofty goals over all other mundane activities. Anyone with a large beginning letter has a strong need to express their opinions. Many actors, leader, politicians and public figures show this stroke in their signature and they are always good orators. There are eight different styles to connect different alphabets and every style reveals the way the writer thinks, connect their thoughts and take action. In his writing, the connection is called ‘Garland’, which shows that the writer is open to new experiences. Like a child, he is young at heart and adapts to situations as long as they hold his curiosity.