The new addiction.. Filofaxes.. well, have been looking for leather ring binders for a while before even knowing about filofaxes. If dug deep, there was an addiction to pens and papers from the age of... well, from the age when writing became familiar.
Was in this shop in Tirunelveli, south car street called Laxmi Paper Mart in 1983 where the guys were not able to give a better paper than the normal 40 or 50 gsm paper in A5 notebook format(or was it B6 - something to research). After about 15 minutes of pestering they bring the one called 'oxford paper' costing triple the amount of a normal sheet and only available in A2 size. It must have been 100 gsm but did not know it then. But the paper was silky smooth, thick but not like card and of the colour of cream (again, did not know anything about cream then! But it was of pale sandalwood colour as I remembered then and now know as cream). Went back to our shop got the paper cut to A4 size (foolscape size it was called - and I thought it was fool's cap!) and stapled in the long side. Ah, the joy of using that paper! Pencils wrote beautifully and fountain pens and ball point pens wrote.. ah bliss.. Heaven for a few days!
The shop next Laxmi Paper Mart was a pen shop. Used to get pocket money of 50 paise (half a rupee) every day and all of them were saved for buying pens. Mum and Dad would buy me pens occasionally but not to sate my addiction. So, pocket money gets saved for a month and pen will be bought for 10 rupees. That 10 rupees now should equate to 100 to 200 rupees. One of the most memorable pens bought was a 4 colour multi-colour ball point pen. Don't remember the brand. But it was steel body with black, red, blue and green ball point refills inside and selected by pulling down a small steel sphere in its groove. This was in a period when ball point pens will NOT write smoothly and are as temperamental as a mongoose on acid. And a long time after that, Reynolds ball point pen came into our lives. What a life changer, that was!
Even after buying pens, one cannot use the pen at home without raising suspicions. Mum or Dad might notice! So, had to use only at school.. And then swap with friends! There was one guy, I remember, called Ambrose with whom I swapped the 4 colour ball point pen for a pilot fountain pen with a piston based ink filling mechanism... And then that craze subsided around 1984..
During 84/85 was addicted to Hero fountain pens. Had around 15 to 20 in all possible colours, red / blue / black and a rare brown one.. Regular supply of Bril Ink bottles (black and Royal Blue).. Once ventured for a Turquoise and hated that.. returned back to Black and Blue right away.. And in 87, Reynolds ballpoint pen came and the whole pen addiction was gone. There is this simple white body pen with a simple coloured cap which writes so smoothly and beautifully even after dropping it headlong in the ground and nothing else matches the quality of writing. And the pen was cheap as chips.. (well, never knew what is the meaning of chips then!). Only risk is, if you are keeping the pen in the shirt pocket, it may leak. And will leak when it is needed seriously.. SAUDS' law! (that is an injoke and will explain later). After that the pen addiction was totally gone as keyboard became the most common way of generating characters than ink and paper.
Now the same level of addiction.. Filofaxes, pens and paper!.. buying spree in eBay, stationers.. So many at home and still not stopping.. Reams of 100 gsm paper.. Guillotines .. Punches.. and finally pens too! Yet to get a fountain pen and they cost way more here... But loads of gel and roller balls.. Soon, I will get a fountain pen too! Did I say 'a' ? Ha..
