An Urushi tree takes about 12 to 15 years to mature for commercial purposes. For only a few months during the year, the sap can be gathered, with every tree producing at best, only about a cupful of sap (about 150 grams), from which the celebrated Urushi lacquer is made.
Where do connoisseurs go to buy their fountain pens and inks and accessories? The question becomes even more important if you are new to the hobby, are discerning enough to be brand conscious, and at the same time do not wish to splurge by paying inordinately hefty sums for your
India-made pens. They fascinate me, for they are my reigning passion, the one end that justifies all means. I have spent so many decades of my life in their search – seeking them out, collecting them, getting the old dilapidated ones restored, compiling their stories, learning about their legacies, and
Mizanur Rahman bhai is a well-known name in the fountain pen and ink user groups in Bangladesh. He runs a very successful shop in Dhaka and can easily be considered among the handful of opinion-makers in the country. As a fountain pen and ink importer, his knowledge about the quality,
Like most fountain pen lovers in India, my first hand turned, India made ebonite pen was a Nauka from ASA pens in Chennai. I had stumbled on to their website and placed an order, which was in due course of time, fulfilled. One order had followed many others and it
Brahmam fountain pens, to most collectors of India made vintage or antique pens, is but a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, inside an enigma, so difficult it is to come across good, working pieces. Naturally, their scarcity leads to the creation of newer fables around them as the scamper to
The Pen Mahotsay, conceived by the Pen Club and organised by Kishaly Events & Advertisement at the ICCR, Kolkata on the 15th, 16th and 17th of April, 2002 has just concluded. It was the first Pen Show of its kind in Kolkata in foreseeable memory and I must begin by
Diptanshu, diehard aficionado of all things fountain pen, ink and stationery – talks about his passion, underscoring the need to use, as opposed to just collect. Morning creative strategy meeting between client and the advertising agency. The Client, one of India’s largest manufacturers of ball point pens, is naturally led
Pen Mahotsav – the first fountain pen show in the east is all set to set the high watermark, create the occasion penophiles were waiting for. Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune – after every pen show, we fountain pen lovers from the east vowed to hold the “mother of all pen shows”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly had written Frankenstein, or, The Modern Promethius (published 1818) in a summer spent in Switzerland. She would later go on to describe that period in her life as the moment, “when I first stepped out from childhood into life”. While Frankenstein continues to remain, a genre defining
Kolkata has often been called the Cultural Capital of the Nation – killing fields for the Tagores and the Rays (and innumerable others) that have, and continue to dominate our perceptions. While the creative history of the city is mostly well-documented, what is less known is the story of the
Karishma, Kafka, Kalam-Kali and Kella She has fought the demons of depression, fountain pen in hand, and destroyed every one of them, her inky creativity, debilitating them all. This intense, often painfully numbing battle was waged, at a time when we were all locked indoors, helpless, as an unknown adversary
