Inkworld

As a Fourth and a Fifth Grader, I was asked to write with an ink pen. And probably the ink had to be royal blue or something. School rules! Don't ask! They did say something about the handwriting becoming better because of it and I agree it was a bit like my pen doing a dainty little ballet recital on the icy white pages. I never broke a nib by the way. Ball pens totally screwed it up Sixth Grade onwards.

So the point is, the other day, I was chatting with a schoolfriend of mine about ink-pens and the kind of ink we used and all that. We remembered "Camlin" quite easily but "Chelpark" took a while. This post is a tribute to many a daub of ink-smear on pages, skin and school uniforms. Let's not wash this away! :)

P.S: I hope some day I'll remember the exact smell of the ink I had used to write my Fifth Grade History Mid-Term Examination. I remember I got 59 out of 60, losing a mark because in a moment of hurried excitement I mistook Robert Owen to be a factory "worker" instead of the owner of the factory in question. Ah well. One can't have everything! What hurts more is the sad loss of the pen that aided me through the test, shortly after the bell rang. There was something unusual about the smell, but I just can't seem to remember it. Seems like it was a pen on a mission. It came. It saw. It conquered. And then it left me for good. :(