Why should we use fountain pen

I submitted this article on the Orkut community for fountain pen lovers (http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#CommMsgs?cmm=12970758&tid=5316153722655895858&start=1) on 23 March 2009.

1)         Its environment friendly: The ball pens generate a lot of plastic and metal wastes in the form of empty refills. Moreover, each refill comes in its own plastic packing which too adds to the already clogged drains. Unfortunately, these days write and throw kind of single use ball pens are very popular. Compare this to the fountain pens. No empty refills, no plastic packing of the inkpots and the inkpot too, being made of glass and an aluminum/plastic cap is recyclable.

2)         It’s economical. Most of us use Parker Ink (Rs 1 per ml of ink), chelpark or Sulekha (Rs 0.25 per ml of Ink). Well I have not conducted any scientific experiment on that but can safely say that I cannot write as much if I spend the money on refills(even with ball pen refills which are more economical than gel pen refills)

3)         You can be sure that whatever you are writing is permanent. Permanent Inks are available with the word permanent prefixed before the color of the ink and they are pretty stubborn. I use Chelpark Permanent Blue-Black ink. I could not remove its stubborn stain from a cloth even after using surf excel. The same cannot be said about gel pens. Some of them may be permanent but I have checked one or two on paper, they are washable.

4)         Because gentlemen use only fountain pens. Well I have read a book titled ‘How to be a gentleman’, which I borrowed from my friend’s brother who is doing a Hotel Management course. The author is from Britain and describes common etiquettes like how to attend a party, how to shake hands, how to arrange dinner table. He writes that gentlemen always use a fountain pen with Blue-Black ink. It was quite a pleasant coincidence. I have been using the fountain pens since I was in primary school and Blue-Black ink for the last 10 years! Now I know I have at least one quality of a gentlemanJ.

5)         It’s stylish! The moment you take out your fountain pen to sign some document or write something, the expression on the face of the stranger in front of you is worth watching. Most of them cannot hold themselves from expressing their surprise in words. It has been ages since I used a Fountain Pen the last time, is the most common expression.

6)         Fountain pens look far sexier than their ball/gel counter parts. Just see the images used to describe writing, poetry etc, you will find that the image has been taken with the focus on a golden Nib of a fountain pen at most of the times. I saw one ball pen named accord (manufactured in Kolkata), which has an image of a fountain pen on its body. Even a ball pen has been made beautiful with the image of a fountain pen.

7)         Its germ free. The rubber grips being used in almost all of the ball pens these days is a health hazard, get it checked and you will find that it’s an adobe to many bacteria. I haven’t seen a fountain pen with a rubber grip so far and will not buy it even if I find one.

8)         It improves your handwriting. That’s what our parents have been telling since we were a child. That’s the primary reason I started using it and that’s why refill pens are banned in many schools even now including my own Creane School, Gaya.

Drawbacks

In a poor country like India poor children cannot afford a good quality notebook which is a must for using fountain pen. Though the use of a fountain pen is economical, they will have to spend more than the saving on a good quality notebook.

ये बच्चों के खेलने की चीज़ नहीं है, अगर लग जाए तो ख़ून निकल आता है J

Remember the holi with ink when we used to fight with our classmates? Some dirty boy used it as a dagger too though I haven’t heard anyone being killed with a fountain pen. You need to be careful if you don’t want to break the nib by dropping. You also would not like to spoil your favorite shirt while refilling.