Aakash Chopra, Rahul Dravid and the curious sameness in their Handwriting Analyses

Last week has been quite eventful for me, not only because i was taking care of my little kid all by myself with his wonderful mother away on work duties but also because i still managed to find some time to analyze the signature of the man i so adore- Rahul Dravid. The story of how i got the access to his signature is there in the last blog. I got to post the analysis on a Sports website where i have recently started writing. This analysis did go somewhat viral in the website with more than 2000 reads, 50+ FB Likes, 40+ Tweets in less than a day.

Another interesting thing that happened was that Test Cricketer Aakash Chopra graciously tweeted the URL of this analysis to his followers and it invoked some interesting conversations which I followed closely. Below is the series of tweets for one such conversation between me,Aakash and one of his followers-

Aakash Chopra ‏@cricketaakash
Here's something for Rahul Dravid fans--What does Dravid's signature tell us about him? http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/02/11/what-does-rahul-dravids-signature-say-about-his-personality/#.URjFYX4OpGQ.twitter …

Dilip Patel ‏@dilippatel_dba
@cricketaakash What about yours ? ;-) I guess, Must not be very different.

Aakash Chopra ‏@cricketaakash
@dilippatel_dba Had posted mine too :) And yes, it wasn't too different :)

Anuj Magazine ‏@anujmagazine
@cricketaakash @dilippatel_dba You will find anaalyses different when there is a large handwriting sample available. Its a true science.

Aakash Chopra ‏@cricketaakash
@anujmagazine @dilippatel_dba It wasn't meant to demean your observations...I hope you understood that!!!

Anuj Magazine ‏@anujmagazine
@cricketaakash @dilippatel_dba was jst making myself clear. The science is often misunderstood. Am open to any feedback.Thanks for response

Anuj Magazine ‏@anujmagazine
@cricketaakash @dilippatel_dba moreover I am not surprised at your and Dravid's same observations. Aren't both you similar in style of play?

Anuj Magazine ‏@anujmagazine
@cricketaakash @dilippatel_dba probably extent of said traits will represent a real diff btwn you & him.That's where large sample will help

 To me this was indeed an interesting and educational conversation. Interesting because what Aakash mentioned was somewhat true I.e. some traits between his analysis and Dravid's were really similar. Educational because this entire conversation made me think and search for reasons, which I eventually did and sharing my thinking here.

To help the explanation, let me put some high level lists as below-

1. No. Of personality traits revealed in Aakash's handwritten sample: 10

2. No. Of personality traits revealed in Rahul's signature sample: 5

3. Traits similar between Aakash and Rahul: Ability to focus, Perfectionism, Optimism , Remain calm in emergency situations, Not impulsive

4. List of additional traits in Aakash's analysis: Self Reliance, Leadership, Cumulative thinking pattern, Frank and Honest, Pride and Dignity

Armed with this information, lets dissect the situation further-

At the fundamental level, there was a difference in the nature of samples, in Aakash's case it was Handwriting + Signature whereas in Rahul's case it was only signature. When we talk about personality analysis via handwriting, the more the content of the sample, the better. As is evident in this case, Aakash's sample had handwriting as well as Signature (which should explain why i was able to see more traits in Aakash's analysis).

When i started learning Handwriting analysis, i was given the impression that this science helps identify around 100 personality traits. As i practiced and became more experienced, i realized that the different handwriting strokes do reveal around 100 traits but if we really start looking at each trait in combination with other we really have scores of traits that could get revealed. To get a sense of what i am meaning here consider the case of a person being highly emotionally responsive and that person having a trait called as temper in his personality. Combining these 2 aspects, we come to know that such a person will really explode with temper even with slightest provocation. If one really masters the art of combining the traits and making meaningful observations, we really are talking about a powerful science. 

With this background in mind, i would like to mention that in any handwriting sample one of the first and basic things that get analyzed are- the Slant, the Pressure and the Size of the handwriting. So even in a handwriting sample, which is seemingly illegible the experience analyst can really make a lot of sense by just observing these 3 aspects. If i look at Aakash's and Rahul's final handwriting analysis, the traits which are marked as similar actually pertain to 2 of these 3 aspects of handwriting i.e. the Slant and size (I am ruling pressure out because one can always argue that it is hard to measure the same for the digital sample) And i am talking about the similar traits such as Ability to focus, Calmness and non-impulsiveness. Other 2 similar traits i.e. Perfectionism and Optimism can known by looking at just the basic observations in the handwriting. 

So, it does it really surprise me that they had these traits in common because they appeared in just the initial observation of their respective samples. Moreover, different people do have similar traits.

One more important consideration here is the volume of sample. In both the cases, the volume of sample was less. More so in the case of Rahul where i just had a digital signature. The volume of sample actually helps to confirm the various aspects of analysis and one of which is the extent of observed traits e.g. as I noted earlier, both of these sportsmen have "Ability to focus" and "Perfectionism" as one of the similar traits but i cannot ascertain the extent of these 2 (or any other for that matter) traits without having a good volume of sample. To explain further, greater the number of words written in a sample, more the accuracy of the analysis in terms of exactness and extent. Knowing both of them, Aakash's ability to focus (while on crease) can be considered great but if i have to measure Rahul's ability to focus after getting influenced by what he has achieved on the field over the years, I would have to call Rahul's ability to focus as Legendary. I hope Aakash will agree with me here too.

The point I was trying to make it, i can comment better on the extent of the trait after really analysing a large volume of the sample.

Do i sound like making sense here ? Do leave your comments even if i don’t. Would love to hear from you.

Image Source:

http://www.timescontent.com/photos/preview/84884/Akash-Chopra-Rahul-Dravid.jpg