Dr. Sovan Roy is a scientist. He is also a much-published author, whose works command a kind of respect in the scientific community that is beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals like us. Then why with the mere dropping of his name, does the kind of reverential silence descend, that
Dhar Brothers and the story of Calcutta’s brush with fountain pen making excellence – fact, fiction or folklore? Imagine that you are so well known for your skills that the Commissioner of Calcutta Police sends his prized fountain pen to you for some repair work. Mind you, this is a
Qalam – the symbol of wisdom, that emphasises on knowledge and education – from which flows the divine art of calligraphy “A solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time” is how the poet laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore had described the Taj Mahal. As a matter of fact, so much
Fountain pen & Ink – the story of Calcutta’s intricate connection with their development, especially in the first half of the twentieth century, is a fascinating one that demands to be told, again, to the lovers of fountain pens. Nearly a hundred years on, most sources are as dry as
Luxmi Stylo Pen Works, Varanasi, was the first to make the “Swadeshi” pen in India. Legend has it that the first “Swadeshi” Fountain pen in India was made by Kosuri Venkata Ratnam to honour the desire expressed by none other than the Mahatma – who wanted an inexpensive pen, made
Fountain Pens in different languages About fifteen percent of the world speaks in Mandarin – that is Chinese to us philistines from the wrong side of the Great Wall. And they call the Fountain Pen the “Gāngbǐ” (钢笔). By comparison, less than half of those putting their Gāngbǐ on paper,
Rabindra Nath Tagore, Asia’s first Noble laureate had visited China thrice, twice living with a young Cambridge educated Chinese poet Xu Zhimo and his wife Lu Xiaoman. Xu Zhimo acted as the official translator of the bard and is known to have been, not only extremely close to the poet,
