Nib Manufacturing in India – the past Knowing of my interest in fountain pens, several acquaintances have drawn my attention to a recent story done by BBC, on how India’s artisanal fountain pens are making a mark. It is a natural Indian proclivity to recognize something only when the West
How the pen box has brought together my two passions in life – writing and woodworking. A few months ago, I rediscovered an old fountain pen, a long-forgotten companion from my college days. It was a cheap Parker with a plastic body, hidden in the midst of a drawer full
Ohto pens are now in India, thanks to Tushar Vaghela I met Tushar Vaghela for the first time in the Ahmedabad Pen Show – fondly christened the Global Pen Expo – in the beginning of this year. Frankly speaking, I had reached the venue not expecting much, not having
The story of Kosuri Venkata Ratnam meeting Gandhiji and Ratnam pens (dated 1932-35) has been documented extremely well. Ratnam pens are celebrated. When President Ram Nath Kovind visited the Pablo Neruda Museum in Santiago on 31st March 2019, the press release by Rashtrapati Bhavan stated, “He gifted a special pen to the
Quotes from two famous authors illustrate how perceptions about the fountain pen changed. The first is Mark Twain (1835-1910). This famous quote is “None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.” This was part of Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar
The year was 1978. Kapil Dev Nikhanj was making his debut against Pakistan. Virender Sehwag was seeing the first lights of the day. The Government led by Morarji Desai, the then Prime Minister, was demonetising high denomination bank notes. Indira Gandhi was on the comeback trail. Kishore Kumar’s soulful rendition
Leena Shrestha Menon runs the Fountain Pen Oasis www.penboutique.com which is to the fountain pen community today, what Milan was to trade industry and commerce during the renaissance. A hard-core fountain pen fanatic, Leena is highly regarded not only by her customers and the brands that she represents, but also
Tibaldi reinvents itself, ready to take on the future, adorn the hands that will shape tomorrow, accessorise the Generation Next. These are incredibly dark days and we all know just how terrible it feels to be lonely, with no outlet except the social media. One is locked-in, depressed and scared
The exact aetiology that makes OCD (of which we all “collectors” suffer in varying degrees) flower is, shall we say, not fully understood, as yet. Some experts postulate that we bear the condition in our genes, though what triggers the “mutation” (if that is the right term), is not clear.
Wars and famines. The fountain pen has witnessed pestilence in the past, just the way it has seen – from the trenches, the two World Wars. An estimated 20,00,000 people died in Leningrad – a direct fallout of the nine-hundred-day blockade by the Nazis between 1941 and 1944. The Bengal
These are trying times. Just when we were beginning to think that mankind has triumphed over the two biggest adversaries that has challenged its existence since the dawn of civilisation – war and pestilence, the world has been hit with a pandemic of such proportions that we have nothing in
Sudhir Kalyanikar, rides his hobby horse, shares vignettes about fountain pen collecting As I have spent some time in this hobby, I’ve realised a few things. For better or worse, sharing these here in the hope that others may identify with these and they may serve as a (kind
