Can you buy stock certificates?

In earlier days, it was possible to buy stock certificates. But after the introduction of dematerialization shares can only bought and sold in digital form i.e., through Demat accounts.
Dematerialization was introduced in the year of 1996 in India. Before 1996, there were lot of paper work done to buy the shares. As there was difficulty in handling the physical shares, Demat was introduced to get your work done easily in electronic forms.