A Case In Point Indian Fountain Pens

[manoj.saroiya]

Several years ago, I heard about a manufacturer of fountain pens in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, whose products were said to have been used by national leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, and legendary newsmen such as Ramnath Goenka, N. Subba Rao Pantulu and S. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar. So when a speaking invitation recently took me to this town at the head of the Godavari delta, I decided to check this intriguing story for myself.

 

That’s when I stumbled on Andhra Pradesh’s tradition of handmade, ebonite fountain pens.

 

 

Vintage: (From top to bottom) The Ratnams of Rajahmundry; Deccan Pen Stores, Hyderabad; and a 200-year-old set made of ivory at Hilal, Hyderabad. Photographs by Madhu Reddy/Mint.

 

K.V. Ratnam started manufacturing fountain pens in 1932 in response to Mahatma Gandhi’s call for swadeshi. The letter Gandhi wrote on 6 July 1935, which now adorns the two establishments that are Ratnam’s legacy, says, in the Mahatma’s scraggly hand, “I have used it and it seems to be a good substitute for the foreign pens one sees in the bazars.”

 

 

The Mahatma’s endorsement worked, not the least on his chief acolyte, for Nehru made a trip to Ratnam’s shop to buy one when he visited Rajahmundry in 1937. Today there are two “Ratnam” pen makers in Rajahmundry, owned by K.V. Ratnam’s two sons, on either side of a narrow lane. That’s not all, there are two other manufacturers who have been touched by his legacy. Guider Pen Works in the same city claims a Ratnam link. Two hundred kilometres away in Vijayawada, I was told, his son-in-law produces fountain pens under the Brahmam brand.

 

Before I found myself on the pillion of a motorcycle navigating the crowded lanes of Rajahmundry’s old town, I had looked up Ratnam Pens on Google. Orders had to be placed in advance and the craftsman would customize the pen to your liking. Ebonite is a form of hard rubber and is generally available in black, mottled green and mottled brown. The pens come in different thicknesses and lengths and can either be fitted with iridium-tipped steel or 14-carat gold nibs. The Ratnams also produce ballpoint pens that use the old, 1980s-style refills.

 

After picking up my order of half-a-dozen steel-nibbed black bodies, I asked K.V. Ramanamurthy, proprietor of Ratnam Ballpen Works, if he could make one to fit my excellent Pilot G-2 gel-ink refill. He said he could, and sent me the result a couple of weeks later. Cutting-edge Japanese technology inside a traditional Indian classic could not have turned out better than this.

 

Roller-balls may be functional, but it’s the fountain pens that have class. You might have noticed the boutique pen stores that have sprung up in shopping malls and airport lounges, selling foreign writing instruments that cost upwards of Rs. 10,000. Classic Indian pens will cost

you a few hundred rupees, and although some might contend that the lower cost is a reason not to buy them, I find the idea of owning the pen that both Indira Gandhi and Goenka used rather appealing.

 

The world’s fountain pen mavens congregate online at the Fountain Pen Network (FPN). It is at FPN that I discovered the prolific Jaisrinivasa Rao, Satish Kolluru and above all, the mysterious Hari who seems to know everything there is to know about the subject. It was Rao’s series of blog posts on the fountain pen makers of Andhra Pradesh that led me to two other purveyors of ebonite fountain pens—Deccan and Hilal.

 

Sabih Akhter Siddiqui started Hyderabad’s Deccan Pen Stores in the early decades of the 20th century. While they have branches in Secunderabad and Ameerpet, the old shop at Abids is an institution. One person told me—whether with a shudder or not I couldn’t tell—that a trip to this store was mandatory before school exams. Tucked away in a shopping complex in Hyderabad’s old city, you might easily mistake this store for yet another wholesale-cum-retail stationery store that hasn’t changed its signboards for a long time. It stocks everything from Montblancs and Watermans to flashy China-made ones. The real secret are its own makes.

 

The FPN mavens had recommended the Deccan Advocate and the Deccan Diplomat, and sure enough, these are two of the classiest pens produced in India.

 

It’s much harder to locate Hilal Pen Stores, in the bustling shadows of Hyderabad’s most famous monument, Charminar. The brothers who run it today are grandsons of the founder, who must have made his living by supplying writing instruments to students and scholars of Urdu. Indeed, the term “writing instrument” is appropriate because the shop still sells slender bamboo reeds that must be shaped into writing points using a penknife (now you know why it is called that), and dipped in ink before writing. M.A. Khader, the younger of the two brothers, showed me a set of dip pens that can take a range of steel nibs, of various widths and cuts, and demonstrated their use. What I was there for though was for the biggest, fattest fountain pen I have come across. Khader smiled when I asked if they’d allow me to take the dagger-sized pen on board an aircraft.

 

There is a charm and elegance to the classic pens made by the Ratnams, Deccan, Hilal and Prasad (from Tenali, yes, that Tenali). They write well, although the lack of modern quality control means that you need to try before you buy. Also, both the Ratnams and Deccan repair and service pens, although this means postage and phone calls. So if messing around with ink bottles and fillers doesn’t dissuade you, perhaps it’s worth having one of these pieces in your pocket.

 

Like many others, India’s handmade fountain pen industry is disappearing because it hasn’t learnt the trick of going upmarket. A European or Japanese fountain pen comes in an elegant box, with a sheet of paper inside essentially telling you why you should feel better for having paid far more than its functional value. None of the pens I bought were so packaged, and some didn’t even have a package. Worse, one had a ghastly plastic box with the name of a Chinese manufacturer on it.

 

The packaging doesn’t affect the pen’s functionality. The marketing, however, does affect the survival of the pen industry.

 

Nitin Pai is the founder and fellow for geopolitics at the Takshashila Institution and editor of Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review.

 

Write to lounge@livemint.com

Edited December 27, 2011 by manoj.saroiya

[vonfilm]

Where can Ratnam pens be ordered from now?

Edited December 27, 2011 by vonfilm

[sajiskumar]

Very interesting and lot of information. Thanks Manoj

Hope I could visit these places in 2012.

-saji

[zal]

a very well researched and written piece. magnificent in all respects. looking forward to more such articles from your pen.

 

rgds.

 

krishna.

[hari317]

  On 12/28/2011 at 7:44 AM, akrishna59 said:

a very well researched and written piece. magnificent in all respects. looking forward to more such articles from your pen.

 

rgds.

 

krishna.

 

Krishna,

 

This article was written by Mr Nitin Pai and published in the newspaper "The Mint". I am not sure if the OP and Mr Pai are the same person. Maybe the OP should clarify.

 

You can read the original article here: link

Edited December 28, 2011 by hari317

[rahulg]

For what it's worth, kudos to Mint and to Mr. Pai for publishing this piece. Brings me back to the wonderful pen hunt days in Hyderabad.

[zal]

thanks to hari for pointing out the source. we need more such articles over here, friends. perhaps some of our members who have the knowledge to write such pieces may pls. consider writing seriously over here, in addition to their blogs.

 

i usually write some articles (nothing much), but alas my knowledge of the fp world is a lame horse, i wish i had authoritative knowledge on these subjects.

 

it would be so nice to read about articles written by our friends here.

 

rgds.

 

krishna.

[mikkolopez]

nice to know this, I've been slyly informed of the finesse of old Indian manufactured FPs but have never seen one in the flesh. maybe if i fly to India I can try one.

 

thanks much for the article.

[tenney]

A very interesting piece... If ever I find myself in India I'll need to find these shops.

[OceanBlue]

Thank you for the Andhra pen maker information; a mission to look forward to if I am ever there..

[brewerjeff]

Thanks for the Indian FP article. It was a walk down memory lane. I lived in Hyderabad for about a year and a half mid 1970s. Probably the lowest point in my FP awareness. Used a BIC, much admired by my associates. Charminar, Abid Road, if I had known then what I know now..... Looking forward to more.

[ahab]

  On 12/27/2011 at 3:04 PM, manoj.saroiya said:

Several years ago, I heard about a manufacturer of fountain pens in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, whose products were said to have been used by national leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, and legendary newsmen such as Ramnath Goenka, N. Subba Rao Pantulu and S. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar. So when a speaking invitation recently took me to this town at the head of the Godavari delta, I decided to check this intriguing story for myself.

 

That’s when I stumbled on Andhra Pradesh’s tradition of handmade, ebonite fountain pens.

 

 

Vintage: (From top to bottom) The Ratnams of Rajahmundry; Deccan Pen Stores, Hyderabad; and a 200-year-old set made of ivory at Hilal, Hyderabad. Photographs by Madhu Reddy/Mint.

 

K.V. Ratnam started manufacturing fountain pens in 1932 in response to Mahatma Gandhi’s call for swadeshi. The letter Gandhi wrote on 6 July 1935, which now adorns the two establishments that are Ratnam’s legacy, says, in the Mahatma’s scraggly hand, “I have used it and it seems to be a good substitute for the foreign pens one sees in the bazars.”

 

 

The Mahatma’s endorsement worked, not the least on his chief acolyte, for Nehru made a trip to Ratnam’s shop to buy one when he visited Rajahmundry in 1937. Today there are two “Ratnam” pen makers in Rajahmundry, owned by K.V. Ratnam’s two sons, on either side of a narrow lane. That’s not all, there are two other manufacturers who have been touched by his legacy. Guider Pen Works in the same city claims a Ratnam link. Two hundred kilometres away in Vijayawada, I was told, his son-in-law produces fountain pens under the Brahmam brand.

 

Before I found myself on the pillion of a motorcycle navigating the crowded lanes of Rajahmundry’s old town, I had looked up Ratnam Pens on Google. Orders had to be placed in advance and the craftsman would customize the pen to your liking. Ebonite is a form of hard rubber and is generally available in black, mottled green and mottled brown. The pens come in different thicknesses and lengths and can either be fitted with iridium-tipped steel or 14-carat gold nibs. The Ratnams also produce ballpoint pens that use the old, 1980s-style refills.

 

After picking up my order of half-a-dozen steel-nibbed black bodies, I asked K.V. Ramanamurthy, proprietor of Ratnam Ballpen Works, if he could make one to fit my excellent Pilot G-2 gel-ink refill. He said he could, and sent me the result a couple of weeks later. Cutting-edge Japanese technology inside a traditional Indian classic could not have turned out better than this.

 

Roller-balls may be functional, but it’s the fountain pens that have class. You might have noticed the boutique pen stores that have sprung up in shopping malls and airport lounges, selling foreign writing instruments that cost upwards of Rs. 10,000. Classic Indian pens will cost

you a few hundred rupees, and although some might contend that the lower cost is a reason not to buy them, I find the idea of owning the pen that both Indira Gandhi and Goenka used rather appealing.

 

The world’s fountain pen mavens congregate online at the Fountain Pen Network (FPN). It is at FPN that I discovered the prolific Jaisrinivasa Rao, Satish Kolluru and above all, the mysterious Hari who seems to know everything there is to know about the subject. It was Rao’s series of blog posts on the fountain pen makers of Andhra Pradesh that led me to two other purveyors of ebonite fountain pens—Deccan and Hilal.

 

Sabih Akhter Siddiqui started Hyderabad’s Deccan Pen Stores in the early decades of the 20th century. While they have branches in Secunderabad and Ameerpet, the old shop at Abids is an institution. One person told me—whether with a shudder or not I couldn’t tell—that a trip to this store was mandatory before school exams. Tucked away in a shopping complex in Hyderabad’s old city, you might easily mistake this store for yet another wholesale-cum-retail stationery store that hasn’t changed its signboards for a long time. It stocks everything from Montblancs and Watermans to flashy China-made ones. The real secret are its own makes.

 

The FPN mavens had recommended the Deccan Advocate and the Deccan Diplomat, and sure enough, these are two of the classiest pens produced in India.

 

It’s much harder to locate Hilal Pen Stores, in the bustling shadows of Hyderabad’s most famous monument, Charminar. The brothers who run it today are grandsons of the founder, who must have made his living by supplying writing instruments to students and scholars of Urdu. Indeed, the term “writing instrument” is appropriate because the shop still sells slender bamboo reeds that must be shaped into writing points using a penknife (now you know why it is called that), and dipped in ink before writing. M.A. Khader, the younger of the two brothers, showed me a set of dip pens that can take a range of steel nibs, of various widths and cuts, and demonstrated their use. What I was there for though was for the biggest, fattest fountain pen I have come across. Khader smiled when I asked if they’d allow me to take the dagger-sized pen on board an aircraft.

 

There is a charm and elegance to the classic pens made by the Ratnams, Deccan, Hilal and Prasad (from Tenali, yes, that Tenali). They write well, although the lack of modern quality control means that you need to try before you buy. Also, both the Ratnams and Deccan repair and service pens, although this means postage and phone calls. So if messing around with ink bottles and fillers doesn’t dissuade you, perhaps it’s worth having one of these pieces in your pocket.

 

Like many others, India’s handmade fountain pen industry is disappearing because it hasn’t learnt the trick of going upmarket. A European or Japanese fountain pen comes in an elegant box, with a sheet of paper inside essentially telling you why you should feel better for having paid far more than its functional value. None of the pens I bought were so packaged, and some didn’t even have a package. Worse, one had a ghastly plastic box with the name of a Chinese manufacturer on it.

 

The packaging doesn’t affect the pen’s functionality. The marketing, however, does affect the survival of the pen industry.

 

 

Sorry for joining the part late. Pai's timely article is a sad reminder of the passing away of the artisanal class in India-- people who make things with their hands for the love of it. More of us should buy such Fountain pens instead of picking up the predictably dull cheap Parkers available in the Indian market. Time some of went 'Swadeshi'on this.

Nitin Pai is the founder and fellow for geopolitics at the Takshashila Institution and editor of Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review.

 

Write to lounge@livemint.com

[ahab]

Sorry for joining the part late. Pai's timely article is a sad reminder of the passing away of the artisanal class in India-- people who make things with their hands for the love of it. More of us should buy such Fountain pens instead of picking up the predictably dull cheap Parkers available in the Indian market. Time some of went 'Swadeshi'on this. ahab

[sopa]

I made a two-day trip to Rajahmundry to buy some of these pens for myself and, more importantly, to have good conversations with the people behind these legacies and know more about them. Needless to say, it was a fascinating journey. Mr. Ramana Murthy of Ratnam Pens and Mr. G. Lakshmana Rao of Guider are full of passion for their craft, knowledge, and anecdotes.

 

The fatherly Mr. Murthy showed me bunches of letter written to him by people who had used his pens and loved them and wanted more of them. And he showed me albums full of photos - of his pens, and of luminaries who used them.

 

Mr. G. Lakshmana Rao's love for his creations is plain to anyone would cares to see. He would tirelessly help you try out pens, nibs, and go on tuning them till you are absolutely happy. He cheerfully demonstrated the making of these beauties.

 

P.S.: I bumped into this thread just now. I'd earlier started a new thread on the same topic: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/236102-the-home-of-indias-fountain-pens/

[hariharan]

I stumbled upon the article only recently and it was interesting and i quipped at the mention of Hari- who knows about everything one needs to know in FP ; how true.

 

Though i agree that indian FPs are less marketed, its also true that the pens over the years have not improved in their quality. Most of the branded companies spend a lot of efforts in researching the flow and design of feed, nibs and balance of pens. Whereas the legacy pens have remained unchanged over the decades. I think the serious FP lovers are not dissuaded from buying indian FPs due to poor packaging, but due to the lack of technological improvement.

 

However, i do not count a bigger group who adorn costly FPs just to establish their own brand value by showing off expensive Pelican on their pockets. They indeed are swept by the marketing wave and expensive pricing.

[de_pen_dent]

^^ Well, if you go by the fondness people have for vintage pens here on FPN, it makes you wonder how tangible these technological improvements really are.

 

I just got 4 Ratnams - a Supreme with their gold nib, and 3 302s with their steel nibs. Lovely pens. I am swapping between the Supreme, inked with Diamine Chocolate Brown, and a Pelikan M1000, inked with Diamine Presidential Blue, and I cannot honestly say which one gives me more tactile pleasure when writing.

[rwilsonedn]

I love the pens described in this thread (at least the ones I've experienced.) They are beautiful, generally wonderful writers, and a bit quirky sometimes. But I think the thing I love about them is that they somehow tell you that they are made by human hands, not by machines, and that the human involved was consciously trying to make a fountain pen, not just following a pattern. There is a flavor of the place that clings to the pens, almost as if a friend from India had chosen to sit with me while I was writing. Certainly subjective, and maybe silly, but none the less that feeling goes into the value proposition for me when I'm tempted by a hand-crafted Indian pen. Now, when pens sold by what used to be legendary US manufacturers are simply wholesale Chinese factory pens, it means more and more to me. And I begin to think that maybe we in the USA ought to ponder for a while the Mahatma's concept of swadeshi: not because the US needs to free itself from imperial domination, but because we need to recapture a sense of who we are as a culture--something Indians seem never to have forgotten.

ron

[de_pen_dent]

"because we need to recapture a sense of who we are as a culture--something Indians seem never to have forgotten"

 

Not really true. India is politically stuck in this bizarro, polarized world where a certain percentage of the population is trying to assimilate global views, while another percentage, in a desperate effort to hold to their own "culture" (whatever that is, b/c culture is an always-evolving thing, not something static), are still holding on to outdated doctrines in the misguided belief that this is somehow their culture. The actual culture seems to have completely fallen by the wayside.

 

And in any case, the underlying basis of US culture is to be forward-looking and not too bound by the chains of the past.

 

Anyway, this is a whole 'nother discussion, I wont hijack this thread.

[ahab]

  On 1/10/2013 at 5:21 AM, de_pen_dent said:

"because we need to recapture a sense of who we are as a culture--something Indians seem never to have forgotten"

 

Not really true. India is politically stuck in this bizarro, polarized world where a certain percentage of the population is trying to assimilate global views, while another percentage, in a desperate effort to hold to their own "culture" (whatever that is, b/c culture is an always-evolving thing, not something static), are still holding on to outdated doctrines in the misguided belief that this is somehow their culture. The actual culture seems to have completely fallen by the wayside.

 

And in any case, the underlying basis of US culture is to be forward-looking and not too bound by the chains of the past.

 

Anyway, this is a whole 'nother discussion, I wont hijack this thread.

 

Why comment on things that you don't understand? You just lack the perspective. If US culture, as you put it, is "forward-looking," so be it. A large section of India is more Janus-faced-- one half of us looks back, and the other half looks forward. The past is not a "chain" but an elixir that keeps a lot of us in India going. Difficult to explain this idea to the denizen of a nation with a 'glorious' history of 400 years! You should look up what Henry James had to say about the poverty of aesthetic, cultural and social traditions in America, and why he preferred Europe for that very reason.

[madzaxmax]

  On 3/20/2013 at 8:03 AM, ahab said:

  On 1/10/2013 at 5:21 AM, de_pen_dent said:

"because we need to recapture a sense of who we are as a culture--something Indians seem never to have forgotten"

 

Not really true. India is politically stuck in this bizarro, polarized world where a certain percentage of the population is trying to assimilate global views, while another percentage, in a desperate effort to hold to their own "culture" (whatever that is, b/c culture is an always-evolving thing, not something static), are still holding on to outdated doctrines in the misguided belief that this is somehow their culture. The actual culture seems to have completely fallen by the wayside.

 

And in any case, the underlying basis of US culture is to be forward-looking and not too bound by the chains of the past.

 

Anyway, this is a whole 'nother discussion, I wont hijack this thread.

 

Why comment on things that you don't understand? You just lack the perspective. If US culture, as you put it, is "forward-looking," so be it. A large section of India is more Janus-faced-- one half of us looks back, and the other half looks forward. The past is not a "chain" but an elixir that keeps a lot of us in India going. Difficult to explain this idea to the denizen of a nation with a 'glorious' history of 400 years! You should look up what Henry James had to say about the poverty of aesthetic, cultural and social traditions in America, and why he preferred Europe for that very reason.

 

Cheers!