The Fountain Pen Obsession
(The route to Nirvana & the psychology)
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- There’s an ink stain in your shirt pocket. Instead of getting rid of it, you wear it as a badge of honour. And your fingers are perpetually stained.
- You carry at least three different pens to work. You refuse to write on any paper, something that your colleagues find perplexing.
- You match your outfit with your notebook cover, your pen (and the ink in it).
- You can talk for hours about the wetness, shimmer or sheen of inks, not to mention the fact that you are an expert on nib sizes and their effect on mental peace!
- You talk to your fountain pens and derive therapeutic bliss in flushing them.
If you could relate to most of the observations made above, welcome to the fraternity. You, like all of us here, are obsessed with fountain pens.
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You are a
Stylophile (someone who collects or is intensely enamoured with fountain pens) or a
Pennographer (someone who formally studies or is attracted to the history and evolution of pens) or
Kalamophile (Kalam = Pen and phile = enthusiast)
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But how does this journey start?
Pretty innocuously, if I may say so.
You buy a fountain pen – mostly an entry-level pen like a Lami Safari, or a Pilot Metropolitan, or a Platinum Preppy, or even a Click Aristocrat. You put your pen to paper, and as the capillary action effortlessly transfers the ink, converting your thoughts into words, you feel the magic.
It is everything but the scratchy, stiff and uninspiring experience of a ballpoint, or the constant banging on the keyboard.
Essential Gear: Lami Safari, Pilot Metropolitan, Platinum Preppy
Indian: Click Aristocrat
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You then replace the cartridge with the converter.
Phew! The Rainbow shoots out of the ink bottle as you realise that ink is not merely blue, black and red, but comes in hundreds of colours (with names more exotic than those of lipsticks). And there are peculiarities like wetness, shimmer, and shine that offer endless opportunities.
Essential Gear: Pilot Iroshizuku, Pelikan, KWZ, Noodlers
Indian: Sulekha
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You realise that ink (even your prized ones) bleeds, blotches, and feathers on ordinary printer paper. Naturally, you feel compelled to replace everything – from notebooks to scribble pads – with premium fountain pen-friendly, quoted paper.
See how the colours pop out? See the sheen as the light plays on the surface? What do the philistines know?
Essential Gear: Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Tomoe River
Indian: Endless Stationery
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The nib. You realise that the nib is the soul of the pen, and that you must caress the soul.
You move beyond the Fine, Medium, and Broad to venture into the world of exotics – stubs for art, flex nibs for calligraphy, and vintage gold nibs for orgasmic pleasure.
You murmur terms like ebonite feeds, tines, breather holes, Naginata grinds, Osmium tips in your sleep.
You also venture into the world of vintage and antique pens (but that is another story).
Essential Gear: Bock, Jowo, Schmidt
Indian: Kanwrite
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Congratulations! You have crossed the Rubicon, the point of no return.
All you think about is fountain pens (and ink, and paper, and accessories). Your “collection” begins to take form – as you focus on craftsmanship, filling systems, exotic resins, collector’s items, or even particular models.
From addressing a functional need, the pen has become your Raison d’être.
You own more than you will ever use. Cleaning and maintaining become a sacred ritual. Rotation becomes maniacal. You implode, preferring pens to people, at least, most people.
Essential Gear: Parker, Shaeffer, Pelikan, Sailor, Pilot, Lamy, Montblanc
Indian: Gama, Lotus
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You don’t even know when you became an anachronism, a vocal proponent of all things analogue.
You rotate your grail pens, forever scheming to acquire the next dopamine blast, shopping, not indiscriminately, but like a trained assassin on a mission.
You exit the WhatsApp groups and redouble on your passion, for the sake of it.
If that is not obsession, what is? Perhaps, Nirvana of a fountain pen kind?
Essential Gear: Montblanc Limited Editions, Namiki, Nakaya
Indian: AP Ltd Edition
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Before we end, my wife, who is a psychological counsellor, insists that I add the following terms that she feels we are suffering from:
Compulsive Buying or Hoarding Disorder (irresistible urges to shop and spend for the thrill of acquisition, and a profound distress in discarding items, resulting in severe living space clutter)
Dopamine-Driven Reward Seeking (dopamine is a “pleasure molecule” that prompts goal-oriented focus and curiosity, pushing one into doing a Sisyphus.
Hypergraphia or Graphomania (an intense, overwhelming compulsion to write or draw)
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Note: The Essential Gear suggestions are purely indicative
Thank You
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