MIXED TAPE - a chance find

That is Trilok Gurtu in full flow…he appears on the cover of a real gem of a book … MIXED TAPE – the First City Interviews 3: Music … you can call it luck or chance or more profound names as karma or serendipity … or whatever … if I hadn’t visited the bookstall at Hyderabad airport, I wouldn’t have known about this book at all … and I am sure, I wouldn’t have been able to find this book at any book stall in Hyderabad … it is not an old book published years back, but one which came out sometime this year… I was actually putting together a pile of books that I wanted to read, planning to buy at least a couple, and I was looking behind the books kept in the foreground on all the stacks in the shelves…and I saw this book…the word ‘music’ held me…I pulled it out and as it happened many times before with books on music, I forgot all about the other books that I was piling up…

This is a book of interviews with musicians…all these musicians were interviewed for FIRST CITY, a Delhi-based magazine, and these interviews appeared in the magazine between August 1990 and July 2009… the moment I saw Trilok Gurtu on the cover, my pulse quickened…TG has been one of my favourites ever since I heard the first album of his that was released in India, The Trilok Gurtu Collection, and after having bought listened to all his albums and his various collaborations, I still go back to the first TG piece that I listened to…Once I Wished a Tree Upside Down…(first in Living Magic and in then in The Trilok Gurtu Collection)…it begins with the ringing of cowbells and moves slowly into a mesmerizing saxophone part played by Jan Garbarek and all the while TG is busy creating magic with his drums and other percussion instruments…I digress, sorry…so, the prospect of reading TG’s interview was a pleasant one and I open this book and want to see who else is there…and wow!!…who else is not there? ... some of my most favourite musicians – vocalists, instrumentalists, and composers straddling the Indian Classical, Film, ‘Fusion’ (so called…!), and every conceivable kind of music that one can imagine that has some connection with India… Ustad Vilayat Khan, Kishori Amonkar, Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain, Pt Ravi Shankar…Indian Ocean, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Midival Punditz, Karsh Kale…Girija Devi, Ustad Bismillah Khan…Talvin Singh, Anoushka Shankar, Madhup Mudgal…and many many more…

And the interviews are not in the question-answer format, which tends to get boring after some time…the format is informal here and the interview also comes across as a friendly banter more than anything else…and it is very clear that the musicians are enjoying themselves…the interviewers describe the actions of the musicians and have masterfully captured the myriad way in which the musicians speak…the ‘na’ at the end of every sentence by Trilok Gurtu, the ‘you know-s’ of Talvin Singh, the guffaws, the cackles, pride, modesty…you feel that you are part of the group interviewing your favourite musicians…delightful…there are no clever (or so called ‘intelligent’) interventions by the interviewers…and the questions are not posed as such, but you can ‘hear’ the answers, which helpfully are in quotes…

The reader gets a ringside view of the changing scene of music…you can see the ‘Asian Underground,’ lounge, trance, etc., fuelled by electronica coming into their own through Talvin Singh, Karsh Kale, Midival Punditz…the Indian rock/pop scene gaining recognition…the second generation, Anoushka Shankar and Ayaan and Amaan Ali Bangash, getting comfortable in the limelight… and the tragic passing away of Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Bismillah Khan…in short, a delightful journey into music in India from 1990 to 2009…

I am trying to inform all my music loving friends about this book…I think this book can become a good companion on many a journey…and many a lonely evening (mornings and afternoons also…)

Thanks FIRST CITY…for this lovely book and moreover, for this wonderful idea… I wish many more magazines emulate this idea and come out with 5-year or 10-year compilations of Music/Film/Art based articles…

A (sort of) review l(r)eading to a crime thriller...fANTASTIC...

Hi…

Bought some books last week…one of them is a current international blockbuster…yeah… Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo…usually, I keep my eyes open for interesting new books, keep myself updated on latest releases through reviews, but somehow, I didn’t know about this book at all…until I read Sandipan Deb’s piece on this novel in his regular column Rear Window in the weekly Open (Sandipan Deb is the editor of this weekly)…this was an unusual piece…not a review per se (though Deb says it is one…of a kind…review)…but intriguing enough for me to want to read it anon…I will not repeat everything that appears in Deb’s piece here, but it had enough points to arouse my curiosity (in case you are interested, you can read Deb’s piece at this link http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/voices/marked-for-life) …I have since bought the novel and finished reading it…and it is everything that I read in Deb’s piece…I used all the spare minutes that I managed to scrounge in between preparing my daughter’s feeds, washing feeding bottles, running errands, and generally carrying her around the house…it is, to use book readers’ killer term ‘unputdownable’…and is worth all the praise that is heaped on it…and to think that, the author, Stieg Larsson (a Swede), died even before seeing his novel becoming a blockbuster…He wrote two more novels (both crime thrillers and I think, sequels to ‘…Dragon Tattoo’ …correct me if I am wrong…) before he died…together they are called the ‘Millennium Trilogy’…unable to resist the temptation, I have placed orders for the second and third ones too…

There are two other books that I bought …I am reading one…this is about music…books of this kind are not published frequently and I am glad I found it… I hadn’t heard of this one too…until I saw it lying unconsoled, consigned to the back stack, last but one stack from the bottom of a shelf at the airport book stall…for me it was like finding a hidden treasure…more next…

My precious...

Hi…

Isn't she an absolute darling... I was away for the last 5 months preparing to welcome her into our lives... and I am happy…very happy…

Shruti and I have a baby girl with us now…so, now you know where I was all these days…I was with Shruti in the hospital trying to do my bit during those anxiety filled days and later sorting things out at home after she came back…our daughter was born premature…6 weeks before the expected date of delivery…and she was in the neonatal ICU for close to 3 weeks…

She is now three months old and is a delightful bundle of joy…we see a lot of things that she does as tantrums and some as demands and some as requests…but do we know actually? She manages to communicate effectively…she doesn’t want to be left alone…she is fond of music…she likes melodious music, not a big fan of beats…partial to instrumental music, I feel, but Shruti says she likes Hindustani classical vocal more…I’ve bought a harmonica and try and play random music on it hoping that she’ll appreciate my musical explorations…she listens intently sometimes and sometimes she screams…ha ha ha…so much for my music…

Now…both our lives are centred around her…anything else is incidental…we have named her ‘Sudhriti,’ meaning ‘positive courage’…and of course, we call her anything we feel is an endearment…chonu…sugar plum...precious...poochu…putumayo…buthros buthros [these two are mine… : )] …shona papa…putti…chinna…and her doctor calls her ‘bangaram’ (gold!)…

Truly amazing…

Marut and his Pens - Story 1

While I enjoy a very high degree of freedom with regard to indulging in my passion for fountain pens…an occasional warning (from you know who!) suffices to douse my ardour for quite some time till temptation strikes again…but I have been remarkably successful in recent times in resisting fountain pen temptation…more so because I now have my grail pen, Montblanc Meisterstuck 149, with me and the other pens in my wish-list are quite high priced too…so I don’t want to venture too far…but some heavy discount offered on Parker Sonnet pens left we weak kneed and I dissolved into ink…and bought 2 Sonnets…see, I am running away with my pens…I have to link up somewhere near the second line and continue with what I wanted to say initially…I will come back with another post on the Parker Sonnets…god promise…

My colleague Marut is a fountain pen enthusiast too…but he doesn’t enjoy a great deal of freedom to nurture his hobby…his missus lays down the rule…but Marut is a clever fellow…I have so many stories to tell…well, at least three good ones about Marut and his pens and his missus…she was once a colleague as well, for only a brief while though… and sometimes this ‘everybody knowing everybody’ leads to tricky situations as narrated below…

This happened almost a year ago…I had to make some pen purchases at Deccan Pen Stores, Abids and I thought I’d alight at the last stop, Koti, instead of my usual Secunderabad stop, and go to Abids from Koti…Marut also travelled in the same bus and gets down at Koti…when I told him about my plan to visit Deccan Pen Stores, he was tempted and decided to accompany me there… and while on our way to Abids from Koti, he switched off his mobile phone…I didn’t know why…I asked him and he smiled…at that time I didn’t know about his travails…it was later that I understood it as a strategic move…I had already informed home that I’d be late…but Marut had just impulsively joined me and no information to missus!!!

Going to a pen shop is not a brief affair for a pen freak…we were there for almost 45 minutes when my mobile phone rang…Marut looked at me and smiled and said, ‘must be my missus’... I looked at the number…it was not a ‘saved’ number, so no name…I read out the number to Marut…he said, ‘yes…that’s my missus …’ and smiled again…he was enjoying my discomfiture…I now had to answer the call… I pressed the ‘speak’ button…and there she was asking me about Marut’s whereabouts …I wondered how she knew that her dear hubby was with me… Marut would have reached home by now and he was now missing for more than 20 minutes from the scheduled time of arrival…she must have dialed her way around some of our bus-mates and somebody would have said innocently that Marut was seen with me last at Koti…Marut had purchased 4 pens by that time and the total cost came to Rs.280/- or so…I wanted to buy something in a higher range, but didn’t find anything within my limit…so I generally chewed the air for some time with the knowledgeable people there…strange fountain pen lingo…feeder, section, aerometric, eye dropper, cap lip, piston…anyway, coming back to the phone call…I told her that it is true that Marut had come with me, but he dropped me at Deccan Pen Stores and went home… how long ago was this…about half an hour ago…he hasn’t yet reached home…must have been stuck in a traffic jam, don’t worry, he’ll reach soon…and all this time Marut was grinning like a cat which had stolen, eaten, and digested the cream…I didn’t know that I could lie like this…must have sounded convincing…she said thanks and closed the conversation…Marut and I decided to make a move…it was now close to an hour since we entered the shop…I wanted some empty pen boxes to store my pens…I got some…Marut paid for his pens and we went out…Marut then told me to take his pens with me and give it to him the next day in the college…I was surprised…why?…you don’t know, saar, I will be interrogated and searched, pockets, bag, everything, now that I have come from a pen shop…we were now together in this pen-spiracy…he had unwittingly made me a partner in this caper… I had to play along…I took the pens he had bought and put them in my bag…

We went our separate ways…it must have wrenched his heart to see his newly bought pens going with me…that too with his approval and consent!! I hopped on to a rick and was winding my way home when my mobile rang…the number seemed familiar…I pressed the ‘speak’ button…and whose voice do I hear? Shouldn’t have surprised me…Marut’s missus…where is he? Why, what happened? He hasn’t reached home yet…he must be riding, can’t say with traffic these days, don’t worry, he must be close to home…when did he leave the shop (very tenacious, this lady!)…around 45 minutes back (I had to do a quick calculation, look at my watch, guess the time she called me when we were in the shop…and bingo! 45 minutes)… he hasn’t reached yet…(oh god!)…I then started weaving around some pointless sentences like traffic, potholes, time he left, time he’d reach, etc., intending to confuse her…I think she got the drift and closed the talk…Marut must have reached home soon enough as I didn’t get any more calls from his missus…

The next day Marut said he got an earful…in fact, two earfuls…for more than an hour…I said he got away lightly…because his pens were with me…imagine what would have happened if the pens were found on his person or in his bag…I shudder to think!! I then handed over his pens…she promptly discovered the pens that evening when Marut reached home (because she is a very tenacious lady…I told you so!)…and interrogated him…Marut told her that all these pens cost only Rs.80/- (!!!) … and self-pedestalled himself by telling her that I had bought a pen worth Rs.600/- or so… What? Oh my god! So expensive!…Don’t be too friendly with him…ok?

(Haaen!! I helped him cover his tracks and this is what he does to me...discredits me?? Traitor!!!...but as a fellow fountain pen enthusiast...you understand...and know how one feels...!!!)

A much awaited book...and a small, but impactful, publishing house

I have been watching out for the publication of this particular book about Hindustani classical music for a long long time…when I saw the reference of this book for the first time, sometime in 2000 or so, it was in the catalogue of the publisher, I thought I must have this book…at that time, I was totally ‘into’ music…reading about and listening to ‘fusion’ and Hindustani classical music…so much so that my actual research got derailed for some time…anyway, it said ‘forthcoming’ under a brief description of the book and a tentative list of topics…I wrote to the publisher and it was still ‘forthcoming’… I wrote after six months or so and it was still ‘forthcoming’…I had seen another book in the catalogue and decided to buy that…it was Ustad Alladiya Khan’s ‘autobiography,’ called ‘My Life.’… Ustad Alladiya Khan is the founder of the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana, and his autobiography, dictated to his grandson towards the end of his illustrious life, is a fascinating moving picture of Hindustani classical music from the mid nineteenth century to almost the mid twentieth centuries … though I was vaguely aware of a bygone Hindustani classical world – the world of small principalities, their court singers, royal patronage, musical one-upmanship, singers and their families, bandishes being closely guarded like family treasures, etc. – Ustad Alladiya Khan’s book revealed this world in full colour…not through photographs, but through words…this is still a cherished book in my musical library…

For some time, I forgot about ‘forthcoming’ book…and recently, a few months back, I remembered that book again and felt that it would have ‘forthcome’ by now…I decided to check if the publisher had a website and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the publisher, Thema, had a website (www.themabooks.com) and more pleasantly, the book had forthcome!! …

Thema is a small publishing venture in Calcutta and publishes books in both English and Bengali…and it has got a compact and ‘impact’ful list of books in its various subsections…women’s studies, oral history, Indian history, children’s literature, culture studies, film studies, radical literature, science…

I browsed the site and saw two more books that interested me… I then spoke to them and placed an order for these three books…the books arrived yesterday…

Ok…the much awaited book is ‘Music and Modernity: North Indian Classical Music in An Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (edited by Amlan Dasgupta) … what first struck me was the subtitle…a reference to the famous essay by Walter Benjamin…The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction…the articles in this book range from early gramophone records to the forms of the Sarod and from women musicians to reflections on the Khayal…some articles do look tough…but that is challenge…

The other two books that I bought are Imaginary Maps, a book of short stories by Mahasweta Devi (Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak) and Manik Bandyopadhyay: Selected Stories (Edited and introduced by Malini Bhattacharya)… there are more that I want to read from Thema…one by one…

Carl Muller's Yakada Yaka and other stories...

The other day I was re-reading Carl Muller's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Cemetry...in fact, I have lost count of the number of times that I have read this book...the book relates a number of humourous, and sometimes hilarious, incidents from the life of the author... some of these are from his navy life...absolutely 'laugh-your-head-off' hilarious...and there are some incidents taken from his life as a journalist in the Gulf (Persian/Arabian Gulf)...and some inincidents from the general life in Sri Lanka...

I bought this book long back on the strength of his wonderful abilities as a 'riotously' humourous writer as seen in his wonderful trilogy...The Jam Fruit Tree, Yakada Yaka, and Once upon a Tender Time...this trilogy introduces us to the Railway life of the Burgher community in Sri Lanka...like the Anglo Indians in India, Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group in Sri Lanka, and formed the bulk of employees in Railways...and this trilogy traces the three generations of the Von Blosses...a thinly disguised retelling of the events of the three generations of his family...the Mullers...the protagonists are Cecilprins Von Bloss, the patriarch, who we see in The Jam Fruit Tree, his son, the uncontrollable Sonnaboy Von Bloss, holds fort in Yakada Yaka and Sonnaboy's son, Carloboy Prins Von Bloss, who comes to the foreground in Once Upon a Tender Time...of the three, my favourite is Yakada Yaka...it is a laugh riot...and this book has rescued me many times from low moods and gave me company on many lonely rummy saturday evenings...and I have invariably ended up laughing uncontrollably at the end of each funny railway episode... 'hilarious' would be a mild term...how Sonnaboy thwarted the pentecostalists, how he ruined the perfect party, how his railway colleagues almost ate a human heart and had to be rushed to the hospital, ...all this and much more...Sonnaboy's volcanic anger...his brood of children...his cranky brothers and sisters...their spouses...their children...a real volatile mix actually...and each episode explodes with laughter, songs, ribaldry, sometimes innocence, and many a times, the English Railway officials, are left wringing their hands at the perfectly loony explanations given by Sonnaboy and his equally crazy railway colleagues...

The Urge to Write with Fountain Pens

I actually wrote a letter today!! I mean 'wrote,' as in 'writing with a pen/pencil'...not typed on the computer...!! This was a letter of thanks to someone who had given me a couple of pieces of something which is part of his heritage and which he hands out very carefully...and this also gave me a chance to test the flow of a recently acquired fountain pen...and also to see how Pelikan brown ink, an ink colour I hadn't used till now, looked when curled into letters on a white sheet of paper... and it was all these three... and I was completely satisfied with the flow of the ink in the new fountain pen...the Pelikan brown ink looked good on white paper...and the letter came out very well...though I was exra profuse with the thanks...I think I can safely blame that on the urge to write some more and some more...what with the ink looking good and flowing well in the pen...

Though I collect fountain pens and use them, I don't get the chance to use them as much as I would like to...so, I create situations where I can use them...I keep a small notebook in my pocket and I write down a lot of things in that with my fountain pen...sometimes I feel I need to write and I don't know what to write, because most of my professional and personal 'writing' is done on the computer...including this post on this blog...and I feel I am cheating the fountain pen fellowship by hoarding pens and not using them...that too expensive ones...

I have made a mid-year resolution...that I will write at least one letter every week to someone I know...far or near or even in Hyderabad...those of you who want a letter from me may please enter your addresses in the comments section and you can also specify the pen and ink! and if I have that pen and ink...I will write a letter to you...sounds terribly stupid?

Google to the rescue...

The author of the Kannada novel (Chandramukhiya Ghatavu) that I had translated, Rodda Vyasarao Venkatarao, from what I could make out from his novel, appears to be a well-read person, interested in Sanskrit classics and also English literature...he has used verses from Sanskrit plays almost at will, whenever he wanted to illustrate a point or where the words of a higher authority would settle the issue...

But he never ever says from where he has taken these verses from...I am not sure how his readers reacted to this use of verses from Sanskrit plays...who did he have in mind as his readers? Once I started translating, I realised I hit a wall when I came across the first Sanskrit verse in the second page itself...and it was in devanagari script...I tried to guess the meaning from the context... and I could make out two words...'hans' for 'swan' and 'kshira' for 'milk'...and I put two and two together and surmised that this verse could refer to that well-known concept of 'hamsa kshira nyaya'... which refers to a celestial bird (swan) which had the power to drink only the milk and leave the water mixed with it behind...and this is given as an example for somebody who has the ability to sort the 'grain from the chaff' so to say... the positive power of discernment or judgment... it is also given as an example for a job or assignment that needs judiciousness or refinement for it to be completed successfully...Many people in India are aware of this concept...

That done...but from where is this blessed verse taken? which book or who should I consult? How should I go about consulting a book? Did I know any Sanskrit scholar? all questions the result of incomplete formal Indian education!! But now I was stuck...

Somehow, as a last independent resort, before consulting people and books, I thought of an old trick, a trick by which I would detect plagiarism during my 'editor' days...I decided to transcribe the Sanskrit verse into English and give it the 'google' treatment...and you know what...it worked and worked beautifully... I now know that this 'swan' and 'milk' verse is taken from Kalidasa's Abhijnana Shakuntalam... some kindhearted souls had put up something related to the play and I also located an English translation of the play...and things started to fall into place... and I gave the same treatment to all the Sanskrit verses that are in the novel...and I discovered that the author had taken verses and phrases from Kalidasa's Abhijnana Shakuntalam and Meghadutam, Bhavabhuti's Uttara Rama Charita, the Hitopadesha, and (now I feel) not surprisingly, a quote from Herbert Spencer too...and I found out from where all these verses, phrases, and quotation were taken with the help of Google...after locating the origins, I had to refine the references...and make them consistent...that is another story...for another post...

Thank you Google for helping me in my search...and all those who had written, hosted, or contributed to various websites on Sanskrit literature...

(the usual disclaimer...I am a happy Google user...in no way connected with Google)

A paper published and some publicity...(!!!)

Last week some good news came in the mail…I received the recent issue of Journal of Karnataka Studies…this journal is published by Kannada University, Hampi, Karnataka… the good news is that my paper is published in this issue…in fact, 2009 has been good in this sense so far…this is the third paper to see the light of the day this year, though I had submitted them some time back…so suddenly, my list of publications has increased…feels good…

This paper is about one of the prolific translators of novels during the early days of the novel in Kannada…Venkatesha Tirako Kulakarni ‘Galaganatha,’ popularly known as only ‘Galaganatha,’ translated 16 novels from Marathi into Kannada…and all of them were historical novels and most of them were written by Hari Narayan Apte originally…

The paper is titled “The Novel and the Nation: Galaganatha’s Rewriting of Historical Novels in Kannada”… and a part of this is taken from my earlier research for my PhD…and of course, the editors wanted me to make substantial changes in the draft I had submitted…which made me read some more and which was really good because I was able to see the whole issue from a slightly different perspective…I had written about the how the ‘novel’ as a genre is analogous to the idea of the ‘nation’ and how the ‘novel’ could be used to ‘plot’ the idea of the nation…especially historical novels…and since this is a family blog I don’t want to get into graphic details which could result in extreme self-torture…!!!

I must thank my friend Tharakeshwar, who was earlier teaching in the Translation Studies Dept at Kananda University, and who encouraged me to send this article for publication…now he has come to Hyderabad and is a reader at EFL University…

Among the many issues that I worked on, I enjoyed working on this aspect of the novel the most…the idea of the ‘nation’ and the novel…

Ad-sense of humour...non?

I knew this would happen...the only question was 'how soon?'... and today morning when I went to my blog, there it was...a few days back I had posted a piece on how a student had mis-(dis?) understood the term 'waste management' and went on to write about how the college 'management' is 'useless'...

Bloggers would know that the embedded ads on the blogsite always reflect the contents of your posts...and therefore for most of the time, the ads on my blogsite are about pens and occasionally about real estate and/or hotels in Hyderabad...not that I have made any money out of these ads...but that is another matter...

And after I posted my previous item, I wondered what ad would come up next to it...and more or less expected it would be something to do with 'waste management'...and true to form...the ad is there today...

I intended my post to be a kind of light humourous take on the use of the word 'waste' in the Hyderabadi lingo and how the meaning was transferred to a totally different domain and how this resulted in a hootingly hilarious interpretation... and see what these Ad-sense people interpreted it...bhaste phellows...

***end note***

Glasses have a remarkble effect on the eyesight......

Especially if they are repeatedly refilled......

yenzoi...

Waste Management…Management of Waste…same? Or what?

I am not making this up…honestly…this really happened…a kind of blooper you find in examination scripts…

A couple of years back on the directive of the Supreme Court, ‘Environment Studies’ was introduced as a subject in all undergraduate colleges across India…in the university where the college I teach in is affiliated, environment studies was initially introduced as an ‘audit course,’ meaning, teaching-learning will take place along with tests and exams, but the subject itself did not find a place in the final marks card…so one can imagine the seriousness with which teaching-learning of this subject took place in many colleges…anyway, in our group of colleges, the teaching of environment studies was ‘pushed’ to English teachers! The English teachers decided to something different with this and used the allocated class hours to make students practice presentation skills, group discussion, public speaking, etc., using topics from the environment studies syllabus…some students enjoyed it…some, as usual, did not want to do anything with this… anyway…

During one of the exams, the teachers had asked a question on ‘waste management’… an important topic in environment studies… about managing domestic, industrial, medical waste… and this was related to me by a colleague working in one of our sister colleges… many students had written brief answers indicating clearly that they had not prepared well for this examination…one student wrote about 2 ½ to 3 pages on this topic…and the teachers were curious to know what he had written…the answer was a scathing criticism of the college authorities…talking about lack of proper sanitation facilities, photocopying facilities, insufficient books in the library, benches and boards in the classrooms, lab facilities, indifference of faculty members…and the tirade went on for close to 3 pages and finally, he said, the college management is a ‘waste management!’

It was then that the teachers realised why he had launched this attack…he had ‘clearly’ understood the question in a different sense…in Hyderabad and most of Andhra Pradesh, the English word ‘waste’ is used as an adjective (across English, Telugu, and Hindi/Urdu) to mean ‘useless,’ ‘worthless,’ ‘hopeless,’ etc., (as against the standard English usage of ‘waste’ as an adjective which means leftover, excess, unused, discarded, spare, etc.) and it is a common to find people saying, ‘he is a waste fellow,’ ‘ waste film,’ ‘waste hotel,’ ‘mera bhai waste hai re,’ ‘waste cinema ra, damagkharab aayi poyindi’…

And for this student, the college ‘management’ clearly came under the category of ‘waste’… ‘waste fellow’…

Translating an early Kannada novel...first draft completed

I am returning to blogging after a long long time...not that I didn't want to or didn't have anything to write about...maybe it was the scorching summer that sapped my interest...or maybe I was just lazy...(see, I have written three lines without saying anything...!!)...If my I put my mind to it, I can write... and this is what I thought I should do and went ahead and translated an early Kannada novel into English...it is an extremely short novel called 'Chandramukhiya Ghaatavu' (The Murder of Chandramukhi) written in 1890...I have researched and written about the translation scene during the early days of the novel in Kannada...and I had always wanted to translate a novel from Kannada to English and felt that this short novel would be an ideal beginning...I thought it would be easy translating a 26-page novel into English...a-page-a-day kind of schedule will take me a month to complete it...only when I started to translate that I saw and felt the real challenges...I found it really tough to locate synonyms for certain words and phrases and idioms and proverbs of the Kannada being spoken and written more than 100 years ago...sometimes the parallels for proverbs and idioms were easy to find in English...like the Kannada idiom 'go-mukha vyaaghra' (a tiger with a cow's face) was easily rendered into the familiar English idiom 'wolf in a sheep's clothing'... and many examples of people and events quoted in the novel were from Ramayana and Mahabharata...mythological figures entered and exited at will...verses from Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti appear at crucial moments...but the story is essentially about 'reforming' the 'Indian' society, a topic that was popular with the early novel writers in almost all languages in India...here, it is about the nefarious activities and final repentance of a fake swamiji...but this novel fascinated me for its narrative style which was unique for an early novel...It finally took me 3 months to complete the translation...I am now doing the proof reading and corrections...this is again taking its own time...there is so much to do after that...and since I studied novel as part of my doctoral research, I want the English translation to be slightly academically inclined with an introduction, preface, notes, glossary, etc. I want this translation to be published...lets see how soon I can release the draft from my hands... for a larger release...

My Grail Fountain Pen...never thought I'd manage it so soon!!

Hi...

This was two weeks back and happened on a Wednesday...that was the day when I was finally able to lay my eager hands on my grail pen...Montblanc Meisterstuck 149...this fountain pen, the king among pens (IMHO), was in my sights for the last 15 years or so...days before fountain pens became my regular passion...at that time I didn't even venture to find out the price of this pen...and after I got a job and all that the passion to own and write with a Montblanc got intense(r)...and a few years later, I heard that MontBlanc had opened their boutique in Hyderabad...I tentatively called them one day to find out the price...they quoted a price which was double my monthly salary at that time!!!...and whenever I telephoned to ask the price, it would have increased and I would find it impossible to even think of buying one... and sometime around 2007 December, I happened to join the fountain pen network and met Hari and one of the first things that I told him was that I wanted to own a Montblanc Meisterstuck 149...he kind of laughed...I think the pen is one of the targets of FP lovers...and it took me over a year since to even think of seriously buying the pen...I wanted to buy it from the boutique, but knew that I could never afford it on my own...I then asked for contributions from near and dear ones...!!! and my near and dear ones were so good that they generously contributed...I could collect quite a bit, but still needed an equal amount to run after the increasing price of the pen...then one find day, Hari told me that he would soon be acquiring his MB 149...and he then told me that he'd be getting a pre-used pen from one of the sellers on FPN...I then saw that this was a sensible way and asked Hari to help me out...the money that I had collected would cover the pre-used cost of the pen...Hari got in touch with Bryant Greer who owns http://www.pentime.net/ and Bryant sent me some pics of the prospective MB 140 and I was hooked!!! right and proper!!! and Hari helped me a lot in acquiring this pen...right from getting in touch with Bryant to sending him the money and keping track till the pen reached me...and it took close to 4 weeks for the pen to arrive from the US...and to add to my anxiety, there was a major incident with the post office...which unnerved me and finally, after a great deal of waiting...I could get it finally...never thought I'd see and have my own Montblanc Meisterstuck 149... (the first photo is taken by me; the other two are taken by Bryant)

Second visit to Books Sale

I just couldn't resist going back to the Best Books' used books sale just one more time...the proprietor had told me on my previous visit that he'd search for Dave Barry books and asked me come back again before the 20th...and when you know that two or more Dave Barrys could be hiding in there somewhere, you just can't afford to miss the chance...so I thought...

So, once again, I dropped down mid way on my way home from college and went to YMCA... as soon as I entered the room where the books were stacked, I saw Dave Barry coming towards me with two books in his hands...I thought 'wow! if not any more Dave Barry books, at least I got to see Dave Barry...' how cool is that?

I left Dave Barry to his devices and went straight to the counter...the moment the proprietor saw me, he shook his head...and made a clicking sound...and said 'nahin hai, sab'... I still had some time, but I didn't feel like browsing...I thought I'd walk over to Al Classic (permanent) used books sale near Sangeet and see if I could turn my disappointment to appointment...while I was thinking of going out, Shruti called on my mobile and I was talking and looking at the titles on a shelf in front of me...I had seen this shelf during my previous visit and didn't expect to find anything new...I reached the last row and I thought I saw the words 'Dave...' on the cover...I pounced on it and it turned out to be one of the Dave Barrys that Vinod had mentioned...Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need ... I was enthused and emboldened now and started my hunting all over again...hoping to snare the other Dave Barry...Dave Barry in Cyber Space...I spent around 15 minutes searching and was not able to locate...maybe, somebody has purchased it...so I thought...then the proprietor's assistant came over to me and gave me a book...I was delighted to see that it was a Dave Barry...but it was not Dave Barry in Cyber Space...the one I was looking for, but Dave Barry's Greatest Hits...so what...? my mission was accomplished...partly...I went looking for two Dave Barry books...got three, one of them seen by Vinod and two which I got on my own...one more is still lurking somewhere...today is the last day of the sale...should I go again...one last visit...? what say you?

What I finally bought at the used books sale...

I landed at the books sale at YMCA on Wednesday evening on way back home from college and needless to say, I was looking only for Dave Barry and Elmore Leonard…I found Maximum Bob soon enough and picked it up…saw some other novels and books that I thought I should buy, but then felt that I might not read them…but I couldn’t locate any Dave Barry books…I eventually had to ask the proprietor at the counter…he pointed to a shelf and there it was…a Dave Barry book. But it was neither of the two books that Vinod had seen when he visited the sale…the one I saw was Dave Barry Turns 40 …

I got Maximum Bob for Rs.45 and Dave Barry Turns 40 (hardback) for Rs.95…I then found a long-searched-for novel in the adjoining room where pulp fiction was stocked…The Silence of the Lambs… I had seen the movie sometime during 1990-92 in Pune. I didn’t understand much then and don’t remember anything now, but liked Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter …I’d seen Hannibal, its sequel, when it was released here in Hyderabad and liked it…Anthony Hopkins was as usual brilliant, but I would have liked Jodie Foster to have reprised the role of Clarice Starling…

I must be one of the few persons who’d read the sequels first and then came to the first one in the sequence…I had read Hannibal and Red Dragon earlier and had bought these books at a used books sale and so, I was kind of determined to buy The Silence of the Lambs too at a used books sale…and I found it here…might go there again today and see if the proprietor has managed to locate the other two or any other Dave Barry book…

Thanks Vinod…for the tip (in/advertent?)…much appreciated…I have already read 5 episodes from Dave Barry Turns 40...and Dave Barry is true to form...

Book Pointers from another Blog?

I had been noticing this ‘Old Books Sale’ (by Best Books) banner every morning our college bus passes YMCA at Secunderabad for the past 10 days or so. And every morning I see this banner, I promise myself that I’d get down near YMCA on my way back from college and see what I can lay my hands on. This wasn’t happening and I felt bad for myself.

Then on Monday, I went across to Vinod (Ekbote)’s blog and saw this post on ‘A midweek haul at a book sale.’ This was about the books that he’d bought at this ‘Old Books Sale.’ As I was reading, I reached a particular point where I strongly felt that Vinod was talking to me! He wrote, “I saw two books by Dave Barry – Dave Barry in Cyberspace and Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need. I also saw Elmore Leonard’s ‘Maximum Bob’ that I have.”

Vinod is the person responsible for introducing me to Dave Barry and Elmore Leonard. In the case of Dave Barry, Vinod actually gifted me my first Dave Barry – Dave Barry is not making this up. I had also subsequently asked him if he’d come across any more Dave Barry books during his various visits to book haunts across Hyderabad.

After I’d heard Vinod talking passionately about Elmore Leonard’s novels, I couldn’t resist reading his novels and found and bought three in a used book store and read them. I was hooked, but couldn’t locate more. Maybe I didn’t search in the right places.

Now you know why I strongly felt that Vinod was directing these sentences at me…!!

I have become notorious in my (own) eyes for not posting in my blog regularly…but, this time, believe me, I will post on what happened next…the next day…

Fables Heard and Seen - I...Space Pen...

I heard this anecdote from somebody or read it somewhere…can’t remember which now… anyway, here it goes…

When the Americans started going to space, the astronauts in the space ships supposedly faced the problem of leaking pens due to pressure related issues…I don’t know whether they were using fountain pens or ball pens…but since both contained liquid…of varying viscosities though… the leaking problem would have existed for both kinds of pens…the astronauts had problems writing in space because of this…and they had to do quite a bit of writing…making notes of their experiments and noting down observations…so, they reported this to their ground staff…and asked the engineers to find alternatives…the ground staff people started in right earnest and commissioned the designing of a new pen that would withstand pressure so that the ink wouldn’t leak…pen experts were consulted…and while all this was going on, it dawned on one of the engineers that the Russians too were sending their cosmonauts to space and they too would be facing the same problem of leaking pens and they too would have found some solution to this problem or maybe are in the process of finding one…so, this person goes to his superior who had enough powers to speak to the Russians directly and told him about what he thought…and suggested that instead of reinventing the wheel, they could make use of the Russian solution in this matter and as this was not a state security issue, the Russians would cooperate… and this American general or whoever called up his Russian counterpart and spoke to him… told him about the problem American astronauts are facing and asked him what Russians are doing about this…the Russian general or whoever replied… “We use a pencil.”

Here endeth the lesson…

This could be an apocryphal story…this might never have happened…this could be a cold war story made up by the Russians…this could be…anything…

Is the ‘story’ about the pen and the pencil, Americans and Russians, or something else altogether…?

Watching Dev D...Anurag Kashyap's take on Devdas

I watched Dev D at PVR's yesterday...I had wanted to see what Anurag Kashyap had done with the theme...I was not disappointed...in fact, I got more than I expected...the movie is an interpretation of the Devdas theme, first conceptualised by Sharat Chandra Chatterjee in his novel called Devdas...it was subsequently made into movies, and many movie stars in many languages in India immortalised the role of the hero...so much so that any young man in India who suddenly starts growing a beard is thought as growing it out of being rejected by his girlfriend...and is called 'devdas'... and if he starts drinking, the name becomes all the more appropriate...because all the movie Devdas-es start growing a beard and start drinking...ostensibly to forget the pain of losing the girl...Paro...

I often wondered why Devdas became so famous...in fact, he is a loser, who has commitment-phobia, and who didn't have enough guts to run away with Paro...and Paro having had enough, marries a widower with two kids... then Devdas starts pining... and in all the movies based on the novel, Devdas is shown as a tragic hero...

Anurag Kashyap shows Devdas as who he is actually supposed to be ... a loser ... the movie then starts becoming interesting ... and gives it a different spin... and the treatment that it gets is really edgy...it kind of flies very close to being 'dangerous'...but comes back to terra firma in time...

Anurag Kashyap thanks Danny Boyle in the initial credits and I again wondered what Danny Boyle had got to do with an essentially Indian themed movie...that too brought onto the silver screen many times over... and then when the movie started 'moving' and 'grooving,' I got it... Anurag Kashyap is obviously inspired by Danny Boyle's Trainspotting and it shows in the many ways in which scenes are framed... and sometimes some scenes and images are obvious nods to Trainspotting images...and the ending is, if I may so after reading so much about Danny Boyle's films and also having seen Trainspotting, is also inspired by Danny Boyle... watch the movie and you'll know... and surprisingly, I don't recall any review mentioning this Danny Boyle connection... maybe I didn't read all of them or didn't read whatever I read carefully enough...

The Deccan Masterpiece...

Hi friends…
The pen under discussion was a chance find at the Deccan Pen Stores, Secunderabad … it is called the Deccan Masterpiece... and here I think the Deccan people have tried to style this Masterpiece on the lines of ‘The Masterpiece’ that all pen lovers know about… you have the twin gold coloured bands on the cap, the clip is golden in colour with a ball at the end and on top of everything (literally!) is a round white circle, reminding you of something similar of a different shape …
The nib is the king in this pen…honestly…I hadn’t seen such a ‘big’ nib before… when I was shown the Masterpiece for the first time, I refused to buy it saying that the nib looked like a knife point… and even when I reserved one for Hari and when we went to buy that one, I was once again not enthused enough…the nib again! And just as it happens with pen addicts…I decided to buy it only to complete the Deccan brushed ebonite collection… and when I asked for the Masterpiece… I liked the design, of course… I opened the cap and there it was…the ‘bruiser’ nib… and so, I bought the Masterpiece … I got it filled with black ink… and it lays down a slightly more than fine not-so-wet line… and as with Deccan Advocates, the Masterpiece also has no starting problems… and I picked up the Masterpiece after 10 days today and it started writing from the first stroke onwards… This is the best thing that I like about Advocates and now the Masterpiece…

Now, something for the statistically minded…the pen is made of Ebonite; Brushed surface with polished barrel end and cap top; polished also at cap lip and barrel lip; the section looks like it is ebonite; and the nib and feed are fitted perfectly – no movements at all; the pen is slightly shorter...the pen has a screw cap – 7 turns to unscrew; two gold coloured bands on cap; golden coloured clip with a ball at the end, and the clip gives a satisfying click when clipped to and unclipped from my shirt pocket… Nib is Size 40 steel…length capped slightly more than 6 inches; uncapped 5 ¾ inches; posted 7 ½ inches…

Doesn't the pen look grand? like a true masterpiece...no?

Jayasrinivasa Rao

Reynolds Ministere...an unexpectedly good looking FP...and a good writer too...

I didn’t know the existence of this Reynolds fountain pen, though Reynolds is well-known in India for their ball-pens. It is also ironic because quite a few traditional fountain pen makers in India attribute the shutting down of their units to the soaring popularity of Reynolds ball-pens. I remember seeing a Reynolds fountain pen-ball pen set long back in a stationery shop here, but the FP did not impress me much (I later found out that it was called Reynolds Accent). A couple of years back, Reynolds (India) opened their showroom in Hyderabad in Prasad’s Multiplex. I had gone there to watch a film and I had some time to spare and decided to go in and see what they stocked. I saw this very good looking fountain pen available in 2 colours, marbled green and marbled blue. The price was not too high, so I decided to buy the green one. They said that this FP was an imported piece!! That settled the matter (ha ha ha…)…No model name was written on it anywhere. I came back and tried their website to get the name of the pen…no luck. The Indian Reynolds site doesn’t list this pen at all…the French Reynolds site was under construction (and still is)…Anyway…I started using this pen and I was very pleased with its performance… It looked good in my shirt pocket, especially if you are wearing a light coloured shirt…the gold plated clip and bands gleam with glee!!! This FP is not available in other pen stores; you have to buy it from their showroom, which is called ‘Write Site’… and the Reynolds India site lists the locations in India… and I visited the Hyderabad Write Site recently to buy a similar pen for my friend on his birthday…I bought the brown one for him… he is mighty pleased…and it was after a couple of days later that I happened to read the payment receipt and noticed that this pen was listed as ‘Reynolds Ministere’… I again tried to cross verify on the web… no reference anywhere to this model name… I don’t know if this is the model name of this fountain pen…but, it writes well…and looks good…

And since Prasad’s is a place that we visit on and off, I was there a month back and ‘sneaked’ in to Write Site and bought the marbled brownish coloured FP…I was looking for the marbled blue, but it was not in stock…it is really stunning...

Jayasrinivasa Rao

One year of blogging...Looking back with thanks...

I wanted to write these some time in January in the New Year …that was when I completed one year on blogosphere … I was busy…very busy…and my mind was occupied with lots of unfinished work… I have managed to complete most of what I had planned satisfactorily… so I thought I’d get down to writing what I had wanted to … all of you would have noticed my fascination for fountain pens by now … it was in the initial days of this fascination that I got introduced to blogging … the early days of a hobby are days of searching for information; trying to gather as much knowledge as one can… and these days of course, Google has made it easier… so, while searching for information about fountain pens, especially fountain pens in India, I hit upon many sites…one of these was www.fountainpennetwork.com and among the others was the blog of a prolific blogger from Hyderabad … I made two good friends through these sites…I met Hari through FPN and Vinod through his blog (I got connected to Vinod through his post on Mont Blanc Meisterstuck FP; which is now my 'grail' pen!!)…

I tend to think of myself as somebody who is not easily swayed…but once swayed, I stay swayed…so, now I am swaying… Vinod’s blog inspired me to start my own blogsite and Hari’s phenomenal knowledge about fountain pens inspired me to stick to this hobby and develop my own knowledge base… I decided to concentrate on Indian fountain pens and I am happy that I was able to ‘discover’ for myself some obscure handmade fountain pen brands from my adopted state, Andhra Pradesh… I learnt a whole new vocabulary…

I started my blog tentatively and my first post was on my fountain pens…rather, a list of fountain pens I owned… before I knew it, there was more and more of fountain pens in my blog rather than books and music…my long-standing passions … and then I felt that collecting FPs and blogging had come together at the right time … I was able to concentrate on my writing and was forced to think, especially while writing about music and books … I had never written anything about music before and I tried it hesitatingly here… Shruti says my writing has improved…coming from her, it is high praise indeed, as she has always been a trenchant critic of my writing…

So, some good has come out of all this one year of blogging … I have, since those early days of blogging, met Hari and Vinod … they have visited me at my home (remembering my fascination with Mont Blanc FP, Vinod had thoughtfully brought his MB along with him for me to see when he visited me and Hari brings many 'pen' goodies from Mumbai whenever he comes to Hyderabad; Hari has recently acquired a MB Meisterstuck 149 and I am dying to see it...) and we have been interacting and have become my good friends… after leaving CIEFL, I have stuck to some of my old CIEFL friends and due to a variety of reasons, I could make friends out of only a couple of people from among my colleagues in the past 8 years…and when Shruti saw me interacting regularly with my new ‘pen’ friends, she was surprised and happy for me … Thanks Vinod and Hari…

Yellow Fellows...Celluloid fountain pens from Guider

I became an inadvertent recipient of some new celluloid fountain pens designed by Mr G Lakshmana Rao of Guider Pens, Rajahmundry. He was kind of asked to design a celluloid FP on the Duofold model. And I think all his red celluloid material was used up and so he used his yellow celluloid tubes to create these pens. He sent me four of these…these have no names, except that the 3 flat end ones are Duofold designs, and maybe called Guider Duofold … the one with the rounded end is the usual Guider celluloid design for that thickness and size…the red coloured one was the first celluloid FP that I purchased from Guider… and there is another brainwave design… the black ebonite with yellow celluloid bands…a kind of 'reverse' celluloid-ebonite design…

You can see the various design novelties in photo 1 …the first one has 2 metal cap bands…the cap on the second one is without any bands…the third one is the red acrylic with the usual Guider design with the flat clip…the fourth is the one with the reverse celluloid-ebonite design…the cap has a yellow celluloid band at the top where the clip begins and another yellow celluloid band at the bottom which gives the pen its reverse look…the fifth one has a black celluloid band at the cap lip…and the sixth one is a yellow celluloid in the usual Guider design with two metal bands on the cap and the arrow clip…

All these pens are ED fillers…if you notice all the celluloid pens have black cap tops and barrel ends…this design is an inevitability of celluloid pens manufacturing, at least, of what I have seen of celluloid pens made in India (Prasad, Guider, Wilson, Leader, Brahmam)…celluloid material comes in the form of tubes, unlike ebonite, which comes in the form of rods…therefore, while making pens, the celluloid tube ends have to be closed and ebonite comes in handy here…so, the black ends are actually ‘stoppers’… and what is unavoidable when it comes to making celluloid pens was converted into a ‘reverse’ design when Mr Lakshmana Rao made a similar Duofold design in black ebonite and put in those yellow bands at the top and the end… and these ebonite stoppers can also be strategically used to save celluloid material!!

I had asked Mr Lakshmana Rao to fix arrow clips for the Duofold celluloid FPs too… but for some reason, he decided to fix this elongated oval kind of clip, which I don’t fancy much …

These yellow fellows do look good, don't they?

Aye Laila-Misty Rhythms...an unusual music album

Album cover-Aye Laila - Misty Rhythms

Ramana Gogula

Kush Khanna

I accidentally found my once-upon-a-time favourite music album online…some blessed soul had uploaded it…and I discovered that it is still one of my favourites…

Music has this strange quality about it that flashbacks you exactly to the same time and place and Aye Laila did that exactly to me…I was transported back in time to my days in the hostel where musical explorations was a thrill and an adventure by themselves… Aye Laila landed in my collection as part of one such musical expedition…I was, maybe, a year or so into ‘fusion’ music and anything out of the ordinary was acceptable musical fodder…some were not ‘fusion-istic’ enough…some were ‘good’…some were ‘imitations’… some did not have what I felt was essential for ‘fusion’…an inexplicable thing called ‘namak’… Aye Laila had two totally unknown names…Ramana Gogula (then) and Kush Khanna…both were based in the US and had formed a musical collaboration and named their band as Misty Rhythms… Ramana Gogula would eventually go on to become a household name in Andhra Pradesh due to his ‘different’ compositions for Telugu films…but Misty Rhythms was probably a kind of portfolio of Ramana Gogula…Kush Khanna is a trained tabla player…and whereas Ramana Gogula, growing up in India, was fascinated by reggae, rock, and obviously admired Bob Marley, Kush Khanna, in the US, grew up learning the tabla and Indian rhythms…and they met in San Francisco and musical interactions resulted in their forming a band called Misty Rhythms… ‘misty’ being a tribute to the misty mornings in San Francisco…and ‘rhythms,’ obviously to the Indian, African, and Reggae rhythms…

This album was released by Sony India and at that time I did not have enough money to buy a CD, and therefore bought a cassette…when I hear those songs now, I look back and try to ‘see’ how I felt when I heard then for the first few times…this album had a total of 12 tracks… and for somebody like me who was exploring different musics, it was a musical treat…the opening bars of the first song ‘Aye Laila’ got me hooked…the song starts of as strumming of an ektara kind of sound and slowly the rhythm sneaks in and before you know what is happening the tune segues into a full blown reggae rhythm…and from somewhere else comes the harmonica…breathes in a tune for a few seconds…and the song begins with Ramana Gogula’s vocals… just lovely…! I thought that the first song is a sample Reggae song and that there would be many more ‘kinds’ of music that this album stores…I was wrong…the album is soaked with Reggae rhythms…at least 5 songs are infused with Reggae and this was for me the first non-Bob Marley album that had so much hypnotic Reggae rhythm…and that too an Indian music album…! There are other kinds of music also…for once you some kind of a European folk song (which I learnt later, was a Bulgarian folk song), and one also gets to hear 3 straightforward instrumental renditions…with lots of Indian classical sounds… and this album also brings in Telugu lyrics …the first song ‘Aye Laila’ is reprised as ‘Aye Pilla’ with Telugu lines replacing the Hindi ones…

And this album so fascinated me that I’d have presented copies to at least 6-7 friends on their birthdays…and they were more than pleased to listen to such refreshing ‘Indian’ music…but the saddest part was this remained their one and only album so far and I don’t see any hope of a second…and therefore, it is also one of a kind musical treat… search online and you find the album somewhere…and you will not regret listening to Misty Rhythms…

Camlin Trinity Fountain Pen-a handsome pen

I had written in one of my earlier posts that I had visited this town called Malappuram in Kerala …and the most pleasant surprise was finding a Camlin Trinity fountain pen on the first day of my visit itself…

Camlin is a long-standing pen and ink and other stationery manufacturing company in India and makes inexpensive fountain pens…and for most of us the first fountain pen that we got to use was usually Camlin…and many of us also have lots of memories of our first Camlin FPs…

I had seen a photo of Trinity pen in the Camlin website and from among the fountain pens featured in the website, this was the most good looking and the most expensive (Rs.70/-; around 1½ dollars) (of course, I didn’t know that Camlin had already brought out their signature pen called ‘SD’ in honour of their founder Sharad Dandekar which costs Rs.600). I couldn’t find this pen in the big pen stores that I usually visit in Hyderabad, and therefore it was a nice surprise to see this pen in Malappuram. It must have been a left-over pen or a never-bought pen because of its price considering the size of the town. Anyway, I bought this pen and the pen looked really good for its price. And the cardboard box in which it was housed said, ‘FIRST TIME IN INDIA: 3-IN-1 INK FILLING MECHANISM.’ Ink can be filled through a convertor (comes along with the pen), or a cartridge can be used or the pen can also be used as an eye . This could be the reason why it is called ‘Trinity.’

Looks-wise and considering its cost, the Trinity looks really good with a brushed steel cap and a black plastic body. Cost-wise, I would grab the pen just as I did as soon as I saw it. The most interesting part is the clip, which is gold coloured and not very wide. The clip originates from the centre of the upwardly tapering cap and kind of flows down till just above the company and model name engraved at the cap lip…like a tuft of hair flowing down from the top of a shaven head…the name Camlin and TRINITY are engraved at the cap lip.

Once the pen is uncapped, you see gold coloured trimmings at the neck of the section…and a gold coloured nib…the nib doesn’t have a hole (kind of an 'eyeless' nib...I got this tip from a fellow FP enthusiast on FPN) , though there is a faint circular indentation at the end of the slit on the nib…the nib itself is smallish and is curved on both sides half embracing the feeder…only half of the feeder can be seen and it has got horizontal fins running around the feeder (this kind of feeder has a technical name, I am sure). A gold coloured ring forms the border between the section and the barrel…this ring is not fixed, and therefore comes loose whenever the barrel is opened. The pen has a snap cap. It is 5 ½ inches capped; close to 6 inches posted; and close to 4 ½ inches uncapped.

I filled the convertor with Sheaffer Skrip Black ink. The nib is tipped ‘fine’ and lays down a fine wet line while writing with a hint of writing whisper. The nib is not ‘butter’ smooth, but is not scratchy either. The flow is smooth and looks like the feeder is functioning well. I wouldn’t take back points for lack of ‘butter’ smoothness. It is a really good, inexpensive and handsome pen for everyday use...

Celluloid Dreams...

This happens to only addicts…when you need that regular dose for that periodic high…ha ha ha…what to do? I’ve been angling for a marbled celluloid FP for a long time…I saw these pens at Deccan Pen Stores in Hyderabad, but what they showed me were all with gold nibs and I couldn’t afford them…I then asked for steel nib celluloid FPs and there was a lot of dilly dallying…and ‘no stocks now’… and ‘will let you know’…and so on and so forth…and one day, I was in Abids, and had no business with Deccan Pen Stores and buying FPs was not even a speck of thought on my mental horizon…without my knowledge, my feet led me to the shop and I kind of lazily shuffled around…and suddenly remembered my marbled celluloid longing and shakily asked Mr Wasim if he could offer me a steel nib celluloid…he gave me a smile and a laugh and took out a pen case and offered me a beautiful red marbled celluloid FP…a Leader…he said the clip and band were gold filled…the pen is so beautiful that I felt strange emotions…honestly…the marbling, and the different effects at different light angles…I had to have this pen…I immediately decided to own this one…Mr Wasim then took out another pen…a marbled gray Brahmam…what was happening? I had asked for one and was now getting two…and the clip and band were not gold filled, and so the pen was within my range…I couldn’t resist…the addict was getting excited…two shots…I was beginning to float…and then, Mr Wasim took out another celluloid FP…a marbled green celluloid similar to the marbled red…a Leader…I was going bonkers…I would hit the roof anytime now…I was kind of mentally paralysed…I couldn’t even calculate how much money I had in my account and whether I could afford all three…reason went for a toss…my ‘celluloid’ dreams were coming true in the most unexpected manner… But reason triumphed…only for a brief while though…I could afford to buy the red and the gray pens, without seriously compromising my wallet…and I bought them, with my heart and mind still stuck on the green that I was leaving behind…I felt I was leaving something personal and precious behind…and I knew that I’d come back to claim it…and it was soon enough…and this ‘soon enough’ happened soon enough because through sheer luck, I got some unexpected money for some extra job that I did at my college, just about enough to pay for the green and claim it…and I acted frantically, calling up the Secunderabad branch of Deccan Pen Stores and asking them to get in touch with the Abids branch to get the green over to Secunderabad, so that I could pick it up on my way back home from college…within two days, I had the green also with me…it was then that I could breathe easily…