India, March 1 -- Dear Reader,

I sit by an aeroplane window, surrounded by stacks of handwritten transcripts, each written in its distinctive style - loopy, scrawled, precise. Eight hours stretch ahead, free from the distractions of the internet, as I grade these papers-ticking off well-crafted arguments, adding smiley faces for humour, and scribbling comments in the margins. By the time we land in Mumbai, I've connected with each student in a way that digital submissions never allowed.

Cut to a year ago when I was drowning in 140 digital submissions on Google Docs - each one a standard times roman. This time, I decided to do things differently: I asked my students to handwrite their assignments. The students were taken aback when I arr...