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One day, his grandfather presented him with a set of pen holders, nibs, and ink-bottle. Under

the watchful eyes of this grandfather, who was himself an expert calligrapher, Prem Bihari
started crafting letters on paper. He took care not to make spelling mistakes so that he didn’t
have to strike off letters and not even a drop of ink he would spill!

His grandfather taught him the secret of handicrafting artistic letters. He would say, “What

you hold in your hand is not just a pen, it’s an artist’s brush. An artist creates images using
his brush. You breathe life into letters with your nib. As your nib touches the paper, your
letters should bloom like flowers.”

When he grew up, Prem Bihari Narayan chose the art he loved as his life’s vocation. He

earned fame as an expert calligrapher of his time like grandfather.
Little did he dream that was going to have a

hand in the writing of the historic document:
the Constitution of India.

Those were the pre-independence days. But
the exercise of making a Constitution for India

by her own citizens had begun even before
the country had become independent. The
Constituent Assembly, consisting of people’s

representatives, met for the first time on
December 9, 1946, in the Constitution Hall
which is now known as the Central Hall of
Parliament House. Two hundred and seven

representatives, including nine women
were present. The Drafting Committee
of constitution experts, headed by Dr.

B.R. Ambedkar, worked day and night to
prepare the constitution. The original draft

of the constitution was prepared, which was later
debated and revised by the drafting committee,
steered throughout by Dr B. R. Ambedkar. The

draft constitution was discussed by the Constituent
Assembly, under the chairmanship of Babu Rajendra
Prasad. It took nearly three years to complete
the discussion. After several sittings, finally the

Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of
India, which came into force on 26 January, 1950.

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