Nostalgia is a tricky beast that paints even painful memories with a sheen of fondness. Look back with rose-tinted glasses, and even those Auschwitz-like assembly sessions seem memorable. Sitting high up on the list of unnecessarily romanticised objects are fountain pens. So, imagine my shock when I found out that the fountain pen is still part of a thriving, niche market in India and around the world.
As a writer, I am a veritable note-taking machine. Diaries, tear-away notepads, and Post-it notes that aren’t as sticky anymore. During work hours, I take notes on my computer. The Avengers stand ready on notebook covers, waiting for me to conquer the world. If not the computer, then the laptop, or my iPad.
For worst-case scenarios, there is always the phone and a spare phone. In the absence of my phones, I take voice notes on my watch! I write with the frantic energy of a penguin and store like a thieving magpie. When my time on the blue planet is done, you’ll only find cheap, ballpoint pens all around me. This is also the reason why I never used fountain pens after reaching a certain age. For pragmatic reasons, I choose to use ball pens that pollute the planet, instead of fountain pens that are a perennial pain in the posterior.
Our school made fountain pens compulsory because they apparently improved one’s handwriting. I know not if that decision was backed by actual science, but it did cause me extreme agony. Forget making our handwriting better; fountain pens certainly taught us values like patience. Like not flinging the ink bottle after soiling your shirt. Not breaking into tears when you resembled Hulk’s cousin, Royal Blue Hulk. Filling an ink bottle was one of the most excruciatingly frustrating activities of one’s life. You could do anything in hiding, from the safe havens of the back benches. But if you filled ink in your pen, people would know. Your hands would be blue, like you’ve been caught blue-handed after assassinating an octopus. Your shirt was blue, as was the breast pocket of your shirt. True to the brand’s name, you carried enough ink to quench a camel’s thirst!
Imagine my surprise when I found out that there is an active market for fountain pens. A small niche, like an extreme indulgence of an active minority. Japan is mostly holding the fort with yearly innovations. I found pens that you had to click on the top, but a fountain nib would pop out from the bottom. Pens with dip nibs that could write an entire Lokesh Kanagaraj screenplay without needing a re-dip. There were legacy companies from Italy and France, and a few Indian companies too. Unsurprisingly, our Chinese neighbours offer the thrill of legacy pens at a quarter of the price, with none of the tedious promises of repairs or service. I tried them all like a kid in a stationery store. Inks with sheen on them, flexi-nibs and converters. Pens with gold nibs, ivory caps and fountain pens made from a specific fountain in France!
Only to come to the realisation that fountain pens aren’t actually meant for professional writers. For writers, a pen is a tool. Like a shovel to a gardener; where stainless steel works better than gold. Fountain pens are for those who like to note down their pristine thoughts on handmade paper (that resembles discarded textbooks by NCERT). Fountain pens have survived not despite their inconvenience, but because of it. Fountain pens are for people who have moved on to a higher realm, having embraced suffering – in four bright colours, with cartridges provided free!
(The writer’s views are personal)