Looking for Sultan Pens in Charminar area, Hyderabad - I

Finally...I was able to make it to old city yesterday (Aug 17th)...this urge to go to Charminar was partly fuelled by the desire for fountain pens...and partly to have the delicious biriyani at Shadab...and this urge actually started after I started collecting fountain pens and saw this stall put up by Sultan Pens at the annual exhibition at Hyderabad... I did not know where Sultan Pens was located in Hyderabad...I searched all the yellow pages and telephone directories, but still no luck...I then felt I could try my luck in th

Finally...I was able to make it to old city yesterday...this urge to go to Charminar was partly fuelled by the desire for fountain pens...and partly to have the delicious biriyani at Shadab...and this urge actually started after I started collecting fountain pens and saw this stall put up by Sultan Pens at the annual exhibition at Hyderabad... I went to this stall and asked for ebonite pens and I was shown a mottled brown ebonite FP with ‘Sultan’ in white paint on the barrel…I would have bought it, but the clip looked rusty and as this was the only piece they had, I had to leave it unbought by me…after I seriously started collecting Indian ebonite/celluloid pens, I thought I should find out more about this ‘Sultan’ pen…I did not know where Sultan Pens was located in Hyderabad...I searched all the yellow pages and telephone directories, but still no luck...I then felt I could try my luck in the area in and around Charminar...I asked a couple of people and one of them said that the shop is in Lad Bazaar, the famous street of Bangles shops near Charminar...I had a clue now…

So I set out, heart full of hope and a reasonable amount of money…I reached Charminar and it was only around 11.30 in the morning and the famous Lad Bazaar which would be overcrowded in the evenings was so wistfully empty…people were just about opening the shutters of their shops and only a couple of bangle shops were open… I wandered down the street looking at all the shop signs…and decided to ask a gentleman standing near a bangle shop…he told me that the shop is at the junction further down…I reached the junction and I couldn’t locate the shop…I wandered further down and again decided to ask a gentleman sitting in his perfumes shop…he told me that I should go back and search as I had come beyond the Lad Bazaar area…I went back to the junction and asked a bookshop owner…he told me that no such shop exists in this area and asked me what I was looking for…I told him ‘ink pens’…he asked me to try my luck at Hilal Pen Stores near the arch…I was not convinced…

I was not going back without finding out where this shop was located, whether they had pens or not…I asked an elderly bearded gentleman sitting in front of his ‘old newspapers’ shop…he told me that he remembered a shop of this kind, but it is no longer there, and could well be relocated elsewhere, and asked me to enquire with another gentleman sitting in the shop opposite selling Islamic books…this man told me that there is no shop called ‘Sultan Pen Stores’ in this area and asked me to check out ‘Hilal Pen stores’…the name again…so I walked my way back and tried to locate ‘Hilal Pen Stores’ near the ‘kamaan’ (arch)…as the day was a Sunday, the pavements in front of the shops located in the ‘kamaan’ area were full of temporary shops selling anything from clothes to books to iron scrap…while negotiating my way through this crowd of shops, I finally happened to see an old fashioned shop with the board ‘Hilal Pen Stores’… a man (whom I subsequently discovered was the owner) was sitting on the steps and selling Islamic books…I wondered whether the owners had changed their business…then I looked inside and saw a forward tilted showcase with pens…I felt relieved…but the shop was full of plastic decorative items, toys, books and other items…then the owner saw me standing in front of his shop and asked me what I wanted…I told him ‘ink pens’… he took a few more seconds to negotiate the sale of the book and stood up and said ‘aayiye saab’ and went inside the shop…I followed him inside…