"Two four four one eight ... " my father was calling out every digit of the telephone number as he was speaking on the phone. He had barely finished calling out the entire series of numbers and the pen in his hand, had imprinted the last drop of ink on the blank piece of paper kept beside the telephone. The thing about pens in every house hold is that, you never find a writing pen when you need one, but you always find them strewn all over the house.
Writing is my fetish, but that is confined to the window of my blog and I don't write with ink on a paper anymore. With almost everything becoming digital, the pen as an instrument does not seem like the most important thing that one needs to carry when they go out. These days the only time I use a pen is when I buy a book to read. I open the first page and write the date on which the book was bought and sign under it, a habit that I have inherited from my father who in turn inherited the same from his grandfather. It helps me keep a record of when I bought the book and for how long its been with me, or sometimes it reminds me of how long its been lying in my shelf without being read.
My father collected about 15 pens lying all around the house, and it so happened that 13 out of the 15 pens did not write and were not in a good condition. My father demanded that I go and get all the pens repaired immediately. I told him that we lived in a generation of use and throw and it would be better to get a set of new pens for the house. I told him that pens are like plastic covers, you use them and throw them. Repairing was out of question. My father's firm conviction and belief in the concept of repair and re-use led me to Rasi pen shop on L.B road in Adyar.
The last time I ever visited this shop was before my final year examination. I grew up buying pens in this shop and I have been loyal to buying pens from Rasi Pens.Over the years the shop had changed, the old man who owned the shop didn't seem to be there. There was a younger man, I presumed that he was the son.The shop had changed a lot in its appearance, a clear indication that business had slowed down. The shop now sold all stationary items from rulers,pencils,sharpeners to fancy watches.There was a glass rack inside which were placed the famous Parker pens and some other pens which had a gold finish. He told me that the money he earned from recharging mobile phones and selling fancy watches and watch straps was much more than what he earned from pens.
I asked the man where his father was and he told me that he had been sick and visited the shop only once a week. As he was changing the refills in the pens that I had handed over to him, he told me that his father did not like venturing into the sale of products other than pens. He used the same tools that his father had used to repair pens and I always loved watching the process of a pen being repaired, cleaned and washed. Repairing the 15 pens that my father had collected cost me 65 rupees altogether.
I came home and found a letter from my bank. They had rejected my form to open an account on the grounds of a signature mismatch between my pan card and the form. As I sat down to practice copying my own signature, I opened a packet of chips this time not using a pair of scissors but of course the pen.
Writing is my fetish, but that is confined to the window of my blog and I don't write with ink on a paper anymore. With almost everything becoming digital, the pen as an instrument does not seem like the most important thing that one needs to carry when they go out. These days the only time I use a pen is when I buy a book to read. I open the first page and write the date on which the book was bought and sign under it, a habit that I have inherited from my father who in turn inherited the same from his grandfather. It helps me keep a record of when I bought the book and for how long its been with me, or sometimes it reminds me of how long its been lying in my shelf without being read.
My father collected about 15 pens lying all around the house, and it so happened that 13 out of the 15 pens did not write and were not in a good condition. My father demanded that I go and get all the pens repaired immediately. I told him that we lived in a generation of use and throw and it would be better to get a set of new pens for the house. I told him that pens are like plastic covers, you use them and throw them. Repairing was out of question. My father's firm conviction and belief in the concept of repair and re-use led me to Rasi pen shop on L.B road in Adyar.
The last time I ever visited this shop was before my final year examination. I grew up buying pens in this shop and I have been loyal to buying pens from Rasi Pens.Over the years the shop had changed, the old man who owned the shop didn't seem to be there. There was a younger man, I presumed that he was the son.The shop had changed a lot in its appearance, a clear indication that business had slowed down. The shop now sold all stationary items from rulers,pencils,sharpeners to fancy watches.There was a glass rack inside which were placed the famous Parker pens and some other pens which had a gold finish. He told me that the money he earned from recharging mobile phones and selling fancy watches and watch straps was much more than what he earned from pens.
I asked the man where his father was and he told me that he had been sick and visited the shop only once a week. As he was changing the refills in the pens that I had handed over to him, he told me that his father did not like venturing into the sale of products other than pens. He used the same tools that his father had used to repair pens and I always loved watching the process of a pen being repaired, cleaned and washed. Repairing the 15 pens that my father had collected cost me 65 rupees altogether.
I came home and found a letter from my bank. They had rejected my form to open an account on the grounds of a signature mismatch between my pan card and the form. As I sat down to practice copying my own signature, I opened a packet of chips this time not using a pair of scissors but of course the pen.
2 comments:
Nice one! :)
A very nice post Priya. It shows a romantic attachment to the past. I also loved the ending, with the multifarious uses that the pen is put to. Thanks for this wonderful post. It brightened up my day.
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