As Rahman Hussaini scrawls on a grey ruled broadsheet leaf with his calligraphic pen, from right to left, one column at a time, the trail is a beautiful pattern of curls, strokes, dots and dashes. He reads it out: ‘Edward, the last of the Kennedys, passes away’.

Hussaini is the chief katib (calligrapher or copywriter) of The Musalman, an Urdu daily that has been in circulation every evening since the first copy came out in 1927. That makes it the oldest Urdu paper in the country. And at 75 paise, it could be the cheapest too.

“The Musalman is perhaps the only newspaper in the world that is fully handwritten,” says Syed Azmathullah, the third-generation printer and publisher of the eveninger.

All of four pages, The Musalman is no different from any mainstream paper. Page one has news from India and the world—the disappointing monsoon to the latest development in the Mumbai attack case, or, like on August 26, the passing away of US Senator Edward Kennedy. Page two is for national and international news while another page is for reports from Chennai. The paper’s 10 city correspondents fill in with news from the state secretariat, police commissionerate and the city corporation. The paper has eight more reporters across the state. The last page has a few edit pieces and writings on spiritual matters.

Once the katibs finish their work by 1 p.m., the dummies are transferred to negatives and printed as a four-page paper. “We have a circulation of about 22,000, including 16,000 in Chennai. But it is also sent to other parts of the country. The Musalman is not just about news, it is also about the language,” says Azmathullah.

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