CHENNAI: Inside Mohammed Moosa’s tiny shop ‘Taj Pens’, there is an odd sense of camaraderie. A side seat is almost always occupied by a customer or an acquaintance, who chats with Moosa over a glass of chai. “You can repair or find any pen you want in bhai’s shop,” says one of his regulars. Moosa writes the customer’s name on a small paper and wraps the pen with it, tucking it away for safekeeping.
The shop on R K Mutt Road, Mylapore, was set up in 1947 by his father Sheikh Abdul Kader for servicing pens. Moosa took over in 1967, soon after graduating from P S Higher Secondary School and gradually expanded his business into selling pens. Further, he diversified into repair of watches and torches at the small outlet. Today, the shop is one of the few remaining ‘pen service’ outlets in the city. Seated in front of the rows of pens, Moosa is surrounded by repairing instruments and tiny eye-glass with which he fixes leaks and mends refills.
“Earlier I would see a person pass the road only once in ten minutes. Today the crowd is unimaginable,” says this old timer, who still cycles from his house on Bazaar Road to his shop. He sits at his shop from 10:30 am to 10 pm every day, except for the one hour lunch break. Doesn’t he get bored? “Where is the time to get bored? Even if I want to read or write, I cannot,” he laughs.
A steady stream of visitors keeps Moosa busy, some young shop workers and some evidently affluent. Many come with 15-20 pens gathered over the past months to repair them all at one-go. One man even comes in and asks Moosa to repair his umbrella.
When Moosa finds a pen for you, it is with the air of an old wandmaker finding the perfect match for its owner. “Before you buy a pen, you should know its feel and how it will suit you. I find it useless to think of people buying pens online,” he states, as he carefully selects an array of fountain pens for this reporter to choose from. “Nowadays, everything is ‘use and throw’. Youngsters have no value for money; they just buy a new pen. They do not want to put in any effort of filling ink and getting their hand dirty,” he laments. But he has his share of customers, around 500 a month he says, who come from all over Chennai mainly for servicing their pens.
Moosa swears by fountain pens, which he says are best for handwriting with the automatic flow, unlike ball pens where the pressure could affect handwriting and cause hand pain. “In earlier days, when people used fountain pens, you could sometimes not tell the difference between a print and handwriting. Today it is just scribbles,” he says.
Does he have a favourite? “There are many — Mont Blanc, Parker, etc. A pen is something that you feel an attachment to. If someone really likes it, they will keep it for decades. If the pen falls down or they lose it, they feel that they have lost a part of themselves,” he says. He has had many such customers attached to their pens including the legendary actor Nagesh.
Running a shop selling just pens appears a tough business in the digital age. But Moosa is not doing it just for profit. He says. “Two of my children are software engineers. They ask me to stop working. But I cannot, I have my own rhythm in life.” With typing taking over writing, pens may no longer be treasured as an extension of one’s personality. “But writing will never fade. At least to put a signature, we need to know how to write, right?” he adds.
