Inking with the blue

 Today,

for some reason

I happened to think about ink. 

Yesterday, I was talking to my friend about how special it used to be write with a fountain pen. At the time I was in school, there was something called Flame pen. They were thick pens, I suppose the size of a cigar, although I barely know what size a cigar is, and much less to hold one. Those pens didn't last too long for my generation as they were quickly replaced by Chinese fountain pens. 

Flame, was an India product. They came in maroon, green, blue. Most of mine were maroon and blue. I never wanted a green one. I have no clue why. 

The pen operated like a syringe. It had the nib, the body that extended into a barrel that had a piston one had to pull to refill the barrel with ink. You had to dip the tip into the ink bottle, just so the nib touched the surface, and then draw ink into the pen. If you pressed the piston quickly while the barrel was full, the ink would spray out and you would have blue (or whichever coloured) chaos right there. And so, it was also called a fountain pen, I like to think. Although I'm sure the person who designed the pen, Lewis Edson in 1883, had other thoughts about it at the time. 

While refilling, you had to be accurate in what section of the nib you dipped in the bottle of ink. It was likely to smudge the pages, otherwise. And stain your fingers. During the time I fractured an arm, I used to use my teeth to draw ink. Lean down into the bottle with the back of the plunger, or the piston caught between the teeth, dip the nib in the bottle of ink, just enough, and then draw the plunger towards yourself with the teeth and focus half an eye on the barrel to watch it fill with ink. 

The Flame pens were soon replaced by the Chinese fountain pens, which were easier to refill. You only had to dip them in ink and press the dropper that sucked the ink into the barrel. But they needed more frequent refilling. And that meant your friends had to sometimes lend you ink. A few drops. And you would return the favour the next day. The Chinese pens didn't leak as much and were slimer and easier to hold. I had earned a huge corn on my middle finger from holding the Flame pen, using the Chinese one might have eased that a little bit. But that didn't keep me from missing the Flame ones. There was great satisfaction in filling my maroon and my blue ones every night to place them in my pencil case for the next day's use. It meant I would not run out of ink the rest of the day. 

The nibs would go awry sometimes as they became worn. And you could buy new ones. Unscrew the head of the pen, place the new nib behind the feeder that provides support to the nib and also supplies ink, and screw it back again. 

(We eventually moved to Pilot pens, Japanese ones. I still missed Flame)

Punta is in class six this week and now he uses a pen to write his schoolwork now. Loons bought him pens and I was surprised to see they are no longer fountain pens that require refilling. The refill are cartriges one has to screw on to the body of the pen. No more ink bottles. 

And so it makes me think of how much a bottle of ink meant in those days. I think a bottle of Chelpark ink cost Rs.35 in those days and lasted a month, or less. A pen was Rs.16, I think, or Rs.25. And every time you had to buy a new pen, you felt excited about what colour you would be able to buy. Sometimes, you could buy pretty floral ones, but they were never as good as the ones that looked modest. Sometimes, you made a small collection of pretty pens. But ink was still a luxury that I had to ask Baa to get it on his way back from work. He used to buy it from a stationery store in Chabel, I imagine. And I think my Baa was always very surprised by how often he had to buy me a new bottle of Chelpark (Chelpark, BTW, is what became when Parker collaborated with Chellaram in India to produce a local brand suitable for the sub-continent). 

I used to love watching the ink flow out of the nib as I filled the pages with homework and classwork. I loved to see my own handwriting and to try and make it look neat.

But no ink bottles and fountain pens shenanigans for my Punta.

He will use blue pens with cartriges. All of them looking the same. And no need for him to reserve a space in his desk or on his bookshelf at home to store a bottle of ink, or to take it out every time his nib starts to stagger a little in the want of ink, so he can refill. And maybe no stained fingers and no stained pages and no stained shirts when you had to jerk the pen a little so the ink travelled to the tip of the nib.

P.S. I stole this image from Google as I don't as an image of Chelpark ink bottle.