Yes, the topic says so. I thought I'll relax a bit and write about these amazing instruments after forgetting how to hold them and write on a paper. Today, I completed five long years (and some days) of working/existing in one company, right after college. While in college, I wasted less paper, but more notebooks – shabbily put marks on papers. Well, I am talking about the notes that were vomited out of my lecturer's mouth – yes, the same slimy thing. I knew how to write. Write fast - almost like shorthand language which the journalists prefer.
I switched between pens (ballpoint pens and fountain pens and sometimes ball-less as well ;)) and sometimes fell in love with pencils. These switches happened after first year, until then I was still a school kid and wasn't unshackled from the rope around my neck to be disobedient. Not disobedient, but a little subtler.
Five years! I tried in-between to write - with anything - but failed. I type, though. Got used to it! Not long back, I was a dropout in typing. I searched for keys and alphabets on QWERTY and typed only using my index finger. I am not proficient now, either. I still search for letters on the keyboard, but a little faster and use all the fingers! ;)
OK… Deviated from the topic I wanted to talk about – Penpencils. Hell! Microsoft’s Word does not recognize this word! Long ago, to begin with - there were pencils, and then came pens. With the advent of pens and complex minds came penpencils. Well reserved only for upper class people, penpencils often were luxurious item to be possessed by any school-goer under 5th ishtandard.
With those decades looming around the lower-middle class, middle class and the upper-middle class (This is equivalent to categorizing a cup of coffee as very light, light, medium light, strong, medium strong and very strong). Both this and the analogy do not have a demarcation. It is up to oneself to convince that it is. In such categories of middle class, pencils are such a huge investment! Your parents would decide what you should carry and what you should not. This includes the lubber (local pronunciation from a fellow who does not have the front two teeth) as well. The pencils became novel. We used to have a pencil which had a lubber (I will not use the r-word as we have grown up to know the meaning of it), pencils with caps, pencils with different-animated-characters-at-the-other-end, long pencils with a hand cap (this is often used to scratch unreachable back body parts), pencils that were coloured with two shades at either ends, to end it were the soft-plastic pencil which can be sharpened like a wooden one.
Now you know why I told the pencils became novel. It did not stop there, the novel became luxurious – penpencils. Variations galore in this category. Variety1: (Popular) We had those transparent 24 cartridges filled penpencils which had a white cylindrical eraser at the other end. You can switch between them whenever the hook (lead) went blunt. Variety2: (Short-lived by its modern cousin) Then came the thick leaded pen-type penpencils – this would require you to insert a thick, long, lead from the back side. Covering the back will be a sharpener which also serves as the press-point to push the lead out through the other side. Variety3: (Famous and most popular) This one was a modified version of his cousin (Variety2), without a sharpener at the back, but with long thin needle-like leads (you can stuff in more than one from the other end). This became popular with higher secondary folks. Who flaunt with it along with their textbooks, in which all the texts will be underlined from page-1 to page-last.
Gandhi’s pencil story had influenced quite a lot of people - Many parents (and indeed from middle class). I would always carry either a half or a quarter of the full pencil. For one, my parents – my dad to be specific - hated the way I lose a pencil. For two, you’ll have to use the quarter-pencil till it became to a size that your dad considers another quarter-pencil for you – mind it – it is not you who makes that decision. Or they could be environment friendly, did not like the way you wasted a pencil by repeatedly sharpening it, just so you can get a new pencil (intention being that the chap sitting next to you is a proud owner of a Staedtler pencil and it is nearly impossible to exchange your Camelin or a Nataraj with his German ones!). At the end of it, you get a Nataraj or Camelin for the ones you had reduced to a wood dust, after you were belted, kicked and run-over by your dad/mom.
Coming to think of it, the Staedtler instruments were frig’n expensive. In today’s living, a Staedtler eraser (lubber to those who know it better ;)) costs a swelling 60bucks! Apsara – the nearest contender (in bigger categories) - from India, costs as less as 10bucks. See the difference? I did not notice until I was man enough to spend money from my wallet. I think during 1995 to 2000, my dad had sent around 5 dozen Staedtler pencils and erasers. These erasers, I would cut them into pieces (though I went in my dad’s direction) as I was still a school-goer – and at school we would play cricket! Criminal waste! Spare the rod for a second – I was unaware and a kid. For the Staedtler pencils I would it give it away to anyone who asks and never bother to ask back. Filthy rich! I was Karna - Proudly giving away things my dad bought with sweat and blood. I can only be ashamed for what I had done, I cannot change the past, but I can acknowledge these and know what must be done for future.
Pencils craze never ended till you catch a fountain pen for the first time. You would do all the stunts you can do. You would use your dad’s razor blade (7 ‘O’ Clock) –new or old- to sharpen your wooden pencils, in the process you would shave off your skin and ooze out the blood. Then came the blades with handles, another craze! How can one forget the cranked sharpeners?! These new type of sharpener was huge and you got put your pencil in to it and start rotating a lever on the other end. Then there were long/short/normal sharpeners.
Now there are electronic and mechanical sharpeners floating around, but how many kids hold a pencil now-a-days? Apart from drawing, carpentry, underlining (replaced by highlighter) texts in books, kids are into serious computing - I mean computer. There are born with A for Adobe, B for Bing and C for Computer and so on…
Good old days when we housed all these instruments in different pencil boxes! Well a variety there as well, double-decker, double side, magnetic ones and list goes on. To this nostalgia add your own narration about the geometry box how we used with no clue about how to use the Set Square and Protractor!
Adieu till I write again!
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