This is a very common story for Nepalese students back in the 80s till late 90s. They know they had to use fountain pens in schools where most of us blotched our white school shirts with ink all over, every where! Only the students above the 4th grade were allowed to write with pens and once they passed on to the 5th grade, they were allowed to write with ink pens. There were two brands of pen available , the "Fountain Pen" and the "Chinese Pen."
Chinese pen were expensive but gave a feel of flair writing while Fountain pens were cheap and affordable, not really flair. We used to cutoff tip of the nib to facilitate our calligraphy skills. People chose buying expensive Chinese pen cause they lasted more. Buying cheaper fountain pens let us need not be worried even if we lost them.
Fountain pens had syringe on it but Chinese pen had suckler like those baby milk bottles. The most popular brand of ink was Chelpark, an Indian product. Suga was the Nepalese brand. The Chinese pen cost around 35 Nepalese bucks while the Fountain pen cost around only 5.00. Lord knows how many times I bought those cheap ones and broke millions nibs for calligraphy. It was harder to refill fountain pen especially if you did not use it for a long time and the syringe would get rusty and stuck. I had couple of Chinese pens, they were easy to refill because of the sucklers.
Chinese pens were for lighter looking fonts. Fountain pens for thicker ones. Later came ballpoint Dot pens that cost around only two bucks each. These days, I don't know if anybody uses them or know about them or do they still exist? I guess many use these Pilot pens that are really expensive and cost around NRs. 45.00 or 55.00 something. Those were terribly expensive pens for my small budget which I would have saved from my lunch money. They sold refills for the Pilot pens too but I ever wonder if it really worked.
Have you guys ever used these pens in your life? I guess Chinese pen is still there. Is Fountain Pen still available? Students today probably still make ink blotches all over their white school shirts. Wonder what its like for kids today.
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5 comments:
Hello dai, haha. Pens ko barema ni blog! wah wah! lol. I used to use chinese pens too. used it frm class 6 to 10. Pachhi ta jpt pens use garyo. I think pilot pens r waste of money. Ani we had to buy red pens wrth Rs.4 to mark our own work. lol. Good old days.
I went to Nepal in summer and i think my sis bought a chinese pen. Ekchhin hai, lemme check....
haha, check gare. It luks different frm outside bt has the same features as a chinese pen. it says mashimoro on the outside, so, i guess it is a jap. pen! lol. I did buy pens there but didn't luk for chinese pens. I think i bought the other ones which were abt Rs.10.
Anyway, keep up the gd wrk dai. Tata.
You write very well.
kids still call them chinese and fountain but actually both of them are fountain as weLL AS chinese.nowadays parker pens are also available ,most of them manufactured in india(of course by parker) but the cost as 10 times or more than those ordinary pens used by the kids.Recently pilot fountain pens are also available at new road at the pilot pen shop.parker pens at bhatbhatini,sailsway etc.
Back in school days,I used to refill those pilot pen with ink that was available in some sort of eye-drop kind of 'bhado'. That moment when you pulled the radiator kind of nib-holding structure out with teeth was the most horrible thing in the world to do; would have ink stains all over your lips and a ink spray all over your t-shirt and wall. And despite all these effort, nothing would replace the factory version. But still it was fun !
12 barsa dhila bhayepani, I am very glad I found this blog. I hope you continue writing about random stuff. I am sure after 12 years someone will be glad to find this. Tapaiko random stuffko archive.
Found you jhukkera on Youtube 2 years back and then yo blogpani kasso bhaettaiyo.
Sincerely
Chiya dherai khane pokhreli
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