A Rare Find - Prasad Celluloid Pen

All right…after the Prasad ebonites, here are some photos of the Prasad celluloid FP…I thought I’d do a separate post and not add it to the original Prasad post, because this is a special and beautiful pen…I have seen plain celluloid pens (the Guider yellow and red) and marbled celluloid pens (Brahmam Leader), but this one was unique for me…but I think there are many designs that can be made possible with celluloid…I don’t know how to describe this colour…is it maroon-ish, with a light pinkish tinge?… maroon ‘mosaic’ would be a better description and the pinkish bits look very shiny…the pen looks good to eat…I wonder how they manage to get this design…

The pen is a screw cap ED filler…5 ¼ inches capped; 4.6 inches uncapped and 6 inches posted…the thickness is the same as the Guider celluloid FP…the nib is engraved with the name ‘Iriloy’ and it is an ex-fine nib…the nib also has the letters engraved ‘Ae’ inside a circle…I have been using one of these with Chelpark crimson violet ink and it writes very well…as is usual with Indian celluloid pens, the barrel end is topped off with ebonite…we can see two cap bands, and they are slightly loose in both pens…the cap bands also have a slightly old brassy look…the clip looks like the ‘Parker’ arrow clip with ‘Prasad’ on it…the pens are definitely old, but unused ones…we can see a number of blemishes here and there…

In fact, this is an ‘afterthought’ pen…I have noticed this with pen-makers here that they don’t offer celluloid pens to their customers initially…and if they do offer, it is only one…it might be because they have a limited number of celluloid pens and want most of their customers to have one celluloid pen at least…Mr Jain also offered me this celluloid pen after I had placed the order for the ebonites…so, in that sense, I am lucky…I tried asking for more…I am addicted, you see!…and he kind of gently told me that these are all he had…

Bling on My Blog...

Regular visitors to my blog (I would like to feel that I have loads of visitors...!!!) would have noticed the drastic changes in the page...I binged on gadgets...and added a lot of good natured bling on my site...in fact, I was getting bored of seeing the same old bespectacled mug and pitchers (sic!!!) of pens on my blogsite...and I was fooling around in the layout section and decided to explore the gadgets...actually, I was looking for a 'counter'...but instead, I found a lot of interesting 'gadgets'...and went on adding them to the site, oblivious of the 'havoc' it was creating on the page...I found some of my favourite painters - Rene Magritte, Matisse, Klimt, Jackson 'Jack the Dripper' Pollock, Wassily Kandinsky, Monet, and my all time favourite Dear Van Gogh...I tried looking for my favourite Indian artists, Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh, Tyeb Mehta, J Swaminathan, Husain, K G Subrahmanyam, and others...but unfortunately, they were not listed there...

Now you can see a new painting every day of these famous painters of the Western world on my blog...and a couple of photographs...National Geographic photo of the day and Nasa photo of the day...and for the poetically inclined, I have a daily Haiku...those succint single drop poems... and for those who want some cogitation, there are daily quotes from some of the most famous and sometimes iconoclast writers...Confucius, Nietzsche, Orwell, and Chanakya...how can I leave my blog without any music...so now you have streaming music...again, my favourite...Jazz...

A feast for your senses...some colour relief for your jaded eyes tired of seeing fountain pen photos...and some 'sukoon' for your ears...some 'masala' for your mind...

Stay as long as you want...enjoy the paintings, music, and quotes...in case you want to add or delete or replace a gadget...drop a line...your comments are always welcome...

Jai...

Watching 'Charandas Chor' at Ravindra Bharati

Two weeks back...on the 5th of November...I got to watch one of the legends of Indian theatre on stage...I watched Habib Tanvir on stage as be appeared briefly playing the role of the queen's counsellor in his iconic play 'Charandas Chor'...this play was a part of the Qadir Ali Baig theatre festival held a Hyderabad...I love watching plays and used to catch quite a few plays during my student days at CIEFL, but of late the travel to and from college has made sure that I return bus-lagged in the evening and so going to plays has become a rarity...so I was in two minds when I got this pass for Charandas Chor...I really had to plan...fortunately, one of our college buses touches a spot near Ravindra Bharati where the play was staged and I could make it on time...the hall was packed and I think most of the audience came to see 'Habib Tanvir's Charandas Chor' and not the play...there was quote a jostle for seats...and a few high and mighty babus were seen looking for seats and they had arrived fasionably late...I tried very hard to get involved in the proceedings...the play was very much up my alley...folk songs, folk dialect, folk humour...all these things I cherish in Indian theatre...I enjoyed whenever I drifted into the play...I enjoyed the melodious singing of Nagin Tanvir, Habib Tanvir's daughter...the actor who played Charandas was really good and brought out the 'hoot' quality of the role...the best part of the whole experience was to see Habib Sa'ab on stage...he is old and frail now and agreed to don the grease paint at the request of Qadir Ali Baig's son Mohammed Ali Baig...and the gesture was liked and appreciated by all...and when he spoke before and after the play, one could see glimpses of his wit and humour...in a extremely unselfconscious manner, he said that he has brought his 'ghasa, ghisa, pita' Charandas Chor to Hyderabad...ha ha ha...

For me, there was another bonus...during the interval, it was announced that a CD containing folk songs of the troupe was being sold in the foyer...I went out to see what the CD was about...it turned out to be folk and other songs sung by Nagin Tanvir...as I had already heard her singing on stage, there was no hesitation in picking up this CD...and I enjoyed a variety of songs...

I had earlier seen a Telugu version of this iconic play and this first-time viewing of Charandas Chor kind of filled a gap in the must-watch list of modern Indian plays...

R(ea)iding The White Tiger

It is two weeks since I read Aravind Adiga's Booker winning novel...when the book was released and I saw it at Book Selection Centre in Secunderabad, I wanted to buy it...it had received some 'interesting' reviews and moreover, he is my country cousin...from Mangalore, Karnataka...the same place where I hail from...and there is an 'Adiga' branch in our family and who knows, he could be related through some roundabout route...anyway, I thought I'd wait till the paperback is released...then Aravind got nominated...then shortlisted...and then he won...now, what to do? no more waiting for the paperback...I bought it the next day...and read it in two sittings...it is a page turner...a different kind of narrative...that means, a simple straightforward narrative...no styles and flourishes...no digressions...and it uses an kind of 'epistolary' style...though not the same as the one used in the early English novels...I don't want to describe the plot or characters here...I enjoyed reading the novel...

I wanted Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies to win the Booker...for me personally, Sea of Poppies is an infinitely better novel than The White Tiger...since I have read both novels, I also feel that The White Tiger is an important Indian novel to have come out at this point in time...it does offer some glee material for some critics...and some sulk material for Indian critics...last week's The Hindu's Literary Review on Sunday carried a longish article on The White Tiger saying essentially that the novel is 'inauthentic'... one doesn't want to start a debate or hold forth on 'authenticity' here...if I can use a cricket metaphor, this novel is a 'reverse swinging' ball...for the ball to reverse swing, the players have to keep one side shining and allow the other side to lose shine and colour... Adiga has tried to show the other side of the shining ball...to say that if only one side is kept shining, the ball has the capacity to reverse swing...