My Pen Companion
In Pune, right at the junction where the road trudged by stationery hobbyists meets the one of the writers who still swear by the fountain pen, is Venus Traders. It is a city landmark: a destination where perched souls in search of solitude head, sometimes to stock up on supplies, sometimes to quench their thirst for more, often just to spend a lazy afternoon browsing.
The credit for creating this unique oasis of tranquillity goes to Surendra Karamchandani – someone who breathes stationery and has quietly worked (since 1974, no less) to feed the growing hunger of the fledgling local community for fountain pens, ink, and accessories. He was one of the early movers into the branded stationery segment, weaving narratives around products of daily use and targeting them to particular niches – the Pu La Deshpande and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam pen sets being examples. He has also firmly placed himself in the Pen Show circuit in India, having been the moving spirit behind a spate of shows, commercially successful ones, in Pune.
I was therefore not surprised when I unboxed the first volume of My Pen Companion, which he has so thoughtfully sent to me. It is a limited edition, carries my name on a golden plaque on the cover and announces that it is the 46th piece out of a total of 520. Bound like a leather volume from the past, this A5-sized, undated notebook of 200 pages is meant to target hobbyists, not only because of the fountain-pen-friendly paper it binds within, but also because it offers comprehensive sections where fountain pen and ink collections can be catalogued. Certainly, a first of its kind in India, an effort that deserves kudos.
The Pen Companion is introduced by Prof. Yashwant Pitkar, who needs no introduction to the fraternity and features write-ups on Nibs by Sandeep Awasthi of Kanwrite, on fountain pen care by Yusuf Mansoor, on legacy Indian writing instruments by Dr Manohar Desai, and on Urushi pens by Vivek Kulkarni. The volume also has a spotlight section on some inks. The mix of relevant information, work tables aimed at cataloguing collections, and empty pages to fill with one’s thoughts is just about right, and I sure am looking forward to putting the notebook through the paces and using it for the purpose it was put together so thoughtfully.
The box was accompanied by a letter from Mr Karamchandani that explained the fact that the Companion has been created to mark Venus Traders completing 52 years, which explains the 520 copies that have been created. Inside the book was a flyer that also announced the date of the forthcoming International Pen Festival to be held in Pune on the 16th and 17th of January 2027.
Fountain pens and inks are quietly raising their petard of protest against a host of issues ranging from the digital damnation of lives through wanton plastic pollution to the gradual demise of handwriting. One way of strengthening this movement is to encourage more and more young people to take up writing, to encourage them to enter into the fascinating fraternity of fountain pen users and collectors. To go analogue and write their way to a better tomorrow.
Viewed with this as the backdrop, My Pen Companion is a step in the right direction, and I wish Venus Trader’s initiative the success that it deserves. May the first volume be the beginning of many more to come.