Diary of an evening hunting fountain pens with Hari in Hyderabad - Part III - Postscript

Hi…

This is part III of the Legendary Series of Reminiscences on that memorable Monday Evening in Hyderabad…

So much for grand openings…this is more in the form of a postscript…and also to fulfil the promise I made in part I that there would be part II and III…and Hari responded saying that he is looking forward to part III…

After I posted part I, I mailed Hari asking him to see whether my memory had served me well…he had comments on both part I and II and I realised how I had floundered ... he also asked me whether I could edit the posts to make the changes … I thought about it and felt that they should stand as they are as a testimony to my fluctuating concentration or attention span… Hari was actually giving me a detailed commentary on the pens that we saw that evening … I thought the term ‘no nonsense’ pen for the Sheaffer FP that he gave me was Hari’s creation … and mentioned this in part I, because whenever he said it, there was a smile on his face…it is such a straightforward pen that I thought Sheaffer did not bother to give it any fancy name and ‘no nonsense’ was an apt name for this pen and not unlikely for an FP expert like Hari to refer to this pen by this name … and I did not see this pen anywhere in their catalogue… Hari pointed this out to me saying that these pens are indeed called ‘no nonsense’ pens for their ‘no nonsense’ functioning… I should have checked on the Internet…I did so subsequently and discovered that this Sheaffer FP was indeed called ‘No Nonsense’ pen and many brief reviews commended these pens for their writing quality… and I read a description of this pen on the Internet that says …“The nice thing about No Nonsense pens is that they truly are no nonsense pens and write first time, every time, very reliable.” … of course, these pens are not that easily available in the market, and I happily discovered that the pen that accompanies the Sheaffer beginner’s calligraphy set that I have is actually the ‘No Nonsense’...

There are some more corrections to be made … again Hari pointed them out … the Hero FP I purchased that day is not Hero 100 but Hero 616 which has a steel nib… it is engraved on the cap…I should’ve checked, no? …and it is a clone of Parker 51… the Hero 100 actually has a gold nib and is a clone of Parker 61 … that means I was not paying attention … the Wing Sung now… I had written that I had forgotten the name of the model of which this Wing Sung is an imitation … again, Hari has helpfully pointed out that this Wing Sung’s encircled nib or round nib is a direct imitation of the Sheaffer’s Triumph Nib and he also added something, which is pretty obvious about this pen and which I had overlooked …this Wing Sung is known commonly as the ‘double’ pen because the special thing about this pen is that it also has a mini ball pen at the barrel end ...

I had, in a cavalier fashion, mentioned that we saw a gold-plated Parker Sonnet FP with a gold nib…without mentioning the name of the model… Hari had told me the name, and again I was not paying attention…Hari says, “The Sonnet that we saw was the Cascade model and it has a solid 18K gold nib”… and the other ‘sober’ looking Parker model that Hari had suggested that I buy is Parker Sonnet Fougere… he had mentioned this too… …I should have taken down all these details… I feel suitably embarrassed…for making so many mistakes… and I also feel happy that if Hari hadn’t pointed out all these to me, I would have remained ignorant of the errors that I’d made…now, hopefully, these will stay stronger and longer in my memory…

Thanks Hari … I am a willing student when it comes to learning more about FPs … be my teacher …

Jai