A book of my own

This would have sounded unbelievable to me some months back…but a book of my own is going to be published soon…

In a couple of posts written long back I talked about a modest translation project that I had taken up on my own…I started to translate an early Kannada novel (written in 1900), Chandramukhiya Ghatavu, into English…I selected this novel mainly because, one, it was a small novel, and I selected this small novel because this was the first time I was translating and did not want to take up something big that would overwhelm me with its size…this translation of a small novel was going to be a test case for me…a trial run kind of…and the other compelling reason was, though small, this novel's narrative structure was remarkably different and experimental from the early social novels that were being published around that time...

It took me around six months to complete translating this small novel of only 28 pages!!! Satisfactorily, I mean…that is, a sensible draft which I was satisfied with… I also discovered that I enjoyed this process of translation…that was a big positive for me…

Now that I was satisfied, I decided to show the English version to a couple of friends and some like-minded scholars who are working with Kannada literature and translation studies. A few changes were suggested by some, but generally they said the translation was good and that I should try and get it published. My friend Dunkin Jalki even cited a small excerpt from the translated Kannada ‘preface’ in his Ph.D. thesis, citing the source as ‘unpublished translation!!’ This pepped me up a bit…

Anyway, the translation was completed sometime during the middle of 2009 and it lay with me and I kept looking at it to see if I could do anything more…I also enquired with a couple of publishers (big ones) and described my book and they told me that the novel was too slim and that it wouldn’t be a viable proposition (read ‘financially unviable’)!!

Then, last year I visited my hometown Shimoga during summer and whenever I visit Shimoga, I visit the homes of my English teachers who taught me when I was doing my BA there. This time when I met Prof Nanjundaiah, I told him about my translated novel and told him that its size was getting in the way of its publication… I was stunned when he told, ‘I will publish it…’ I asked him how he was going to make it viable…he tossed around a few ideas and then he wondered if it was possible to publish a bilingual edition…the original Kannada and the English translation side by side…that was a very good idea, I said, but then getting permissions and the logistics worried me…he assured me that he knew the editor of the Kannada edition (who discovered the Kannada original in 1994 in British Museum, London), and that he’d speak with him and get his permission…

This was some months back and then one day he called me up and told me that he has got the permission and that he is proceeding with the page setting and other pre-printing essentials…and then in the last month he sent me the proofs online for proof-reading and editing…I could now see the book in its pre-print avatar and I was thrilled…Sir had even managed to get a kind of introductory note from the editor of the Kannada edition…

I proof-read and made some small changes in the proofs and sent it back and am waiting with bated breath for the book to come out…a book of my own…

DECCAN AURELIUS/AUTHOR - new model from Deccan Pens, Hyderabad

Deccan Pen Stores, Hyderabad, has come out with a new FP model… Mr Zubair who mans the Secunderabad branch of DPS called me a few days back…I was planning to visit the Secunderabad branch anyway to see if I could get a nice mechanical pencil, and also to look at some inks and Camlin SD had come up for discussion once again on FPN and I didn’t have one with me…so, Zubair informs me that Deccan Pens has made a new model and that he has got one piece reserved for me and when could I make it…since I was anyway planning to go there, I decided to visit that day itself…and this is the FP he showed me…

I liked the pen instantly…nice design, sleek lines, and a not-too-glossy black…Zubair said the design is inspired by a British model, but did not exactly remember which...of late Deccan has been experimenting with materials other than their almost staple ebonite and this pen is the second such recent instance (the first can be seen here)…this FP is made of acrylic and is an aerometric filler…I am not a great fan of aerometric fillers, which kind of put me in a hesitant mood…but I found a way of consoling myself telling myself that the ‘most talked about’ FP, P51, is also an aerometric filler…

There were some small changes which added to the allure of this pen… the calligraphic Deccan ‘D’, which is usually seen near the cap lip, is on the cap jewel in this model and the medium point nib looks customised with 'Deccan' engraved on it...first time for a steel nib I thought for Deccan Pens...I ran photos of this pen through Hari and he clarified that Deccan had these customised steel nibs and would on request fix them on FPs…Zubair also informed that the clip is US gold plated and won’t fade and that the material used for the body of the pen is German...

I filled the pen with Sheaffer Skrip black ink…it writes well, and there is a sweet spot when it is angled slightly right and I enjoyed that smooth flow…but it wouldn’t start up immediately after being closed for a couple of hours and I had to cajole it to re-start…could this be a flow-related problem? Normally, Deccan ED fillers don’t have this problem (I have opened Advocates after a couple of weeks and they purred on like Rolls Royces…ha ha ha)…maybe that aerometric filler…

The problem with new Deccan models is that only few pieces are made at a time and DPS is not in a position to cater to FP lovers who would want to get hold of new models…maybe in a far-fetched sense, one can call them Deccan LE Pens…anyway, that is for FP enthusiasts to fight it out with DPS…

Zubair told me that they are considering two names for this FP – Deccan Aurelius (in honour of Marcus Aurelius?) and Deccan Author…and haven’t yet decided…I would prefer them to have some pieces of all models at all times so that the entire range is available for selection…

Here are some pictures…actually, a lot of pictures…


Capped


Uncapped


Posted...


The clip...


Writing sample...


Cap jewel


The translucency at the cap lip


The nib...


The feeder...


Size comparison with Deccan Advocate

SOME OLD INDIAN FOUNTAIN PEN BRANDS - 8 - TEKO

Here is an FP called TEKO…I found only one and it looks like one of those Parko pens showcased earlier in this thread…the pen has got a nice black and silver pattern on its barrel and cap…it looks like the material is celluloid, but is not…as we have seen earlier in the case of Parko pens, a thin plastic celluloid patterned sheet over a regular plastic body seems to have given this pen the ‘expensive exclusive’ celluloid look…the nib has ‘smoothglide’ pressed on it…and ‘TEKO FINE’ (meaning fine nib?) can be seen on the barrel…the arrow clip with a diamond shape at the top is reminiscent of the Vacumatic plain diamond clip…here are some photos…

SOME OLD INDIAN FOUNTAIN PEN BRANDS - 7 - Indian PILOT

This is an Indian PILOT which I found in the lot…looks neat and is an NOS I think…I have a couple of other Indian Pilots in my collection and I wondered whether I should showcase this pen here or have a different post for all the Indian Pilots, but then I thought, since I got this pen in this lot and Indian Pilots are not being made anymore, this pen also qualifies to be classified under Old Indian FP Models (alongside Indian Watermans and Indian Swans)…maybe sometime in the future I will have all the Indian Pilots in one post…for the present though, we have this Indian Pilot…

It is a burgundy coloured screw cap ED filler…plastic body with a gold coloured cap band and a similar smaller band at the barrel end…the name PILOT INDIA can be seen on the barrel…and a shiny open nib with Pilot Made in India –(2)– HARD GILT etched on the nib…I liked the nib, looks handsome…and it has got a square hole through which the groove on the feeder is visible…the feeder itself is flat with no fins…the cap is almost rectangular at the top and kind of ‘tapers down’ to become a circle…the clip is flattish and seems stuck right into the cap-top (one can see this kind of clip in one of the SEVIKA models too)…after the previous post on PAGODA, Hari suggested that Pagoda could be inspired by Pilot models, especially when one looked at the square nib hole and the angular clip…it then struck me that…yess…the Pilot India that I had had a square nib hole and an angular clip… and so, I thought of a comparison photo of nibs and caps of both pens…

SOME OLD INDIAN FOUNTAIN PEN BRANDS - 6 - PAGODA

This is an ED filler called PAGODA…it has got a plastic body with a metal slip cap…and lots of other interesting things about this plastic FP…the nib for one…it has a hooded nib with an unusual shaped nib door…and a square nib hole with ‘Pagoda Tipped Fine’ engraved on the nib…the name is also seen on the cap lip along with an image of the Pagoda…the name is also seen on the barrel…the end of the barrel has a hole and it doesn’t look like there used to be a stopper there…the cap and the clip have a different shape…

Here are some pictures…