I for Inkpot

Its been sometime now since my younger daughter has taken to writing with pen in school. And yesterday while I was buying refills for her gel-pens for the 138th time this year, I suddenly got nostalgic!!!

I still remember my first day in Class 6 which was filled with apprehension, fear, anxiety that catches hold of you when you are suddenly going to be officially declared as senior! But then, it was this excitement of starting to write with pen which masked all the other feelings. Somehow, the 3 letter P, E and N was the passport to adulthood, to maturity, to seniority. It marked the end of kiddish era of PENCILs. PENs meant that finally we have arrived (though WHERE noone would know). We were not allowed to write with ball-point pens and so fountain pen it was. I can proudly say that my first ever PEN gifted to me by my father stood by me for 7 years till the end of my school education.
It used to be quite a ritual no less than the famed tea ceremony, this art of filling ink in the fountain pen. There were many ways of doing the needful. You had cylindrical storage type pen where you just needed to fill the ink and the ink would trickle to the nib enabling you to write. Then there was this pump type where you had to dip the nib of the pen just enough into the Camlin’s ink-pot (I wonder if the kids of today know the meaning of this word) holding a valve tight and on release of the valve, the ink would be sucked into the pen.
I would dutifully keep a duster by my side during this ritual of ink-filling since it would invariably lead to ink-baths everywhere. A piece of chalk would also be kept handy, since chalk absorbs ink fast. After filling the pen, the tips of my fingers would attain a dark blue hue and somehow it gave me a feeling of what a hard-working student I was!
The ink-pens were also source of mucho joy in school though looking back I find the acts pretty wrong. But when you are young, there is nothing called wrong when it comes to times you are having a good laugh. All the bothersome and unpopular teachers would find ink stains on their sarees or shirts or trousers. And ink being ink, would not be scrubbed off easily! I had many lasting ink stains on my uniform too, not that it ever bothered me. As an aside, I have been told that blue ink has anti-inflammatory property and soothes a burn. Never tried it but have heard my grandparents vouch for it.

Coming back to pen, the nibs of the pen were the most delicate parts. One hard push and phooosh! They were gone. Oh and let me at this stage, confess that inspired by Ved Vyas of Mahabharatha and all those classic mythological serials and movies, I did try to quill-write using the feathers of pigeon ( I could not find one of the peacock) but dipping in the inkpot for every second word was something which was testing my already low patience and hence the idea was discarded.
Exam times saw me packing 5-6 extra pens and ofcourse the ink pot.
Gone are the days! Today is the world of Gel-pens and Reynolds. My daughter tells me that for her boards its mandatory to use ball pen and not ink or gel-pen! Times surely have changed. So, with the advancement in technology, there is a price tag attached and lets accept it with grace. Though we have less time on our hands to fill ink in the pens, we have electronic medias like these where we can get outright nostalgic. Years later, when my kid’s kids will grow, maybe gel-pens will be out and some silicon-pen will be in and then my kids will update their blogs something on these lines :)
So, now when I need to rush to that book store for buying assortment of refills for the gel-pens of my kids, I try to think of the plus. Atleast they don’t get their hands stained like we did and atleast their teachers sarees and dresses are safe!!!