Simple and cute pen stands at handicrafts fair in Malappuram

While I was in Malappuram, I couldn't help going on a pen hunt… Malappuram is a medium sized town and one wouldn’t expect to find a full fledged pen shop there… but, I saw a couple of stationery shops in the street where the lodge was located… and I found some FPs there…well…that’s for another post… A ‘handicrafts mela (fair)’ was also on in the town and Shruti and I decided to see what they had on offer…our lodge was located in a place called Down Hill and it was literally ‘down the hill’ and this if you have visited one handcrafts fair in India, you know what to expect when you visit another… but you never know … things which wouldn’t have attracted my attention a year ago seemed to call out to me … like these two inexpensive pen stands that I saw in the Kerala State Handicrafts Stall … very ingeniously made from bamboo … bamboo looks suited for pen stands.

I bought two, in fact, they had only two models… the smaller diameter ones and the larger diameter ones … and the larger pen stand also has a small receptacle … for a specially made inkwell? or for a round shaped eraser… though when I bought them, I didn’t think in these terms … these looked nice and inexpensive…and I liked the ingenuity of using bamboo for pen stands … and those small paint dabs look like Japanese style flowers … For the purposes of this post, I have used the small diameter stand for my Leader and Brahmam celluloid FPs…you can see them in the photo…the stand looks made for these pens… and I have used the larger stand for the heavy thick FPs like the Guider Jumbo, Ratnam Supreme, and Deccan Major (brushed ebonite) … the bigger Deccan Masterpiece will be more appropriate I think…I have yet to get one…

I took some photographs of the pen stands at various nooks inside by flat…just to make them look interesting…

Our Enchanting Kerala Trip

Backwaters at Ponnani
At the Bharatapuzha River-gently swaying in the breeze

A two-storeyed Kerala style house opposite Thiruvegappura Mahakshetram

Kunthippuzha River from atop the Pulamanthole Bridge

The Thirumaandhamkunnu Bhagavathi Temple, Angadippuram

Shruti and I visited Kerala a week back…the first time I was stepping into God’s Own Country after 1978…I was thrilled…we were invited to conduct a 2-day workshop for District Resource Group members (high school teacher trainers) of Malappuram District…we were put up in Malappuram town…and the experience of conducting the workshop and the sightseeing, both were fabulous…the workshop was hosted by the EMEA College of Arts and Science, Kondotty and the District Panchayath, Malappuram…we visited Calicut beach, but it was dark by the time we reached there and the there was some kind of a power cut…so, no power and we saw the beach in darkness! Shruti is a regular water baby and even the darkness did not deter her from having a brief encounter with the Arabian Sea…this was on the evening of the first day of the workshop…

After the two days of workshop, we had kept a day in reserve for sight seeing…the coordinator of the workshop, Mr P P Roy and his colleague, Mr Prem Kumar accompanied us on this sightseeing tour…it was extremely gracious of them to spend a whole day with us...Mr Roy was with us throughout the 12 hours that we spent…we almost went around the district…we visited a couple of temples, just to see the lovely and earthy Kerala style temple architecture …we travelled through roads, lanes and bylanes and were rewarded with enchanting sights of greenery all around and the rivers and the backwaters and the Arabian Sea once again… I have lots to share about this trip … I will only post some photos now … more later ...

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...