By Owais Mughal
Being away from Pakistan for ten long years, I have missed many small things which I always used to take for granted. One such small thing was the joy of writing with a fountain pen.
A Fountain pen was first patented in US in the year 1884 but since then writing with it has become a lost art. I have shopped around for fountain pens in US and the cheapest ones I have found cost around $15 and they writes so bad that Pakistani ‘Eagle’ brand can beat then anytime and anyplace. Eagle is an international brand but their product in Pakistan was one of the best or at least it feels like it after all these years of nostalgic memories.
Twenty years ago a Pakistani ‘Eagle’ used to cost around rupees four. I preferred to write Urdu with Eagle because its nib was not that fine. For writing English, I had a ‘Made in China, ‘HERO’ brand pen which was priced around rupees eleven. Then there were some really cheap fountain pens which gave wonderful Urdu writing. One of them was ‘RAJA’ (The Prince) fountain pen which cost around a princely sum of rupees 2 only. Another cheap fountain pen was ‘Dollar’ which also cost around rupees three.
I had my Raja pen’s nib cut at an angle (Z-nib) to write the ‘Nastaleeq Urdu’ script. I never mastered the art of writing ‘Nastaleeq Urdu’ or calligraphy but it was fun to at least try writing it.
We used a ‘z-nib’ fountain pen to write Sindhi also. I remember that some of my class fellows used ‘z-nib’ to write complete exam papers of Sindhi. They however, always struggled to finish the paper in time too.
For those of us who graduated high school from Sindh Board may remember that one question in Sindhi ‘salees’ (easy) board exam was about writing a Sindhi poem in ‘khush-khat’ (good hand-writing). This question was repeated every year and everyone practiced very hard in it to score some sure-shot marks. I used a ‘z-nib’ fountain pen to write that poem.
Somehow improving hand-writing has always been a big deal in Pakistan’s school system. The generation before mine used to write on a washable wooden board (takhti) and used ink-dip calligraphic pens for Urdu. We didn’t use ‘takhti’ but up to grade X we were not allowed to use ball-point pens as it was supposed to destroy our hand-writings. This strict rule relaxed a bit in Grade XI and XII but I 
remember a certain teacher in Grade XII used to throw ball-points out of the class window if he saw anyone writing with it.
Writing with ball-points and markers for the past many years made me crave for fountain pens so much so that on a trip to Taiwan in 2003, fountain pens were the first and the last shopping I did. I now proudly own a collection of fountain pens and I write with them whenever I crave.
Today while editing this article I practiced my Parker again and copied this ‘sher’ (A poem verse) on a white sheet of paper. While my hand-writing is no way close to good or calligraphic my pen however is a perfect Urdu scripter.
Hopefully on my next trip to Pakistan I’ll buy a few more fountain pens.
Owais Mughal grew up in Karachi and is an Electrical Engineer now living in St. Louis, Missouri.
HI SIR H RU ? my favr pen yellow piano pen
and see visit this website
http://www.dotklick.com
from SOFTWARE HOUSE
i am very satisfied to used my ink pen because it is very smooth in running and writing’s little sister is also use ink pen. my hand writing is very improve thanking you mummy for the suggestion.
tuba kauser
4th std,amravati
Salaam to you all,
This is the first time I am doing this, i.e. writing on a website in response to the comments on a subject I was reserching: fountain pens. I am also from Pakistan and as I see most of you seem to be also, and have lived in the States for the last 37 years.I recently inherited some fountain pens from my father. I agree with nost of the things I have read and disagree with some of them, but, that is why we have horse races, don’t we? I came to the States after finishing seventh class in 1970 and we had been allowed to write with a fountain only for only the last of those two classes, and what a pleasue it was to do that for me, Sorry Saad.Even though the teachers were strict “Nazis”, I did not go to school with the Nazis. My father was a professor in Pakistan and then here in the States and he always said the object of writing is to get your message across, and if you do not write well enough for the reader to understand than you have not succeeded. One’s the writing was to be started on “takhti” and to make sure it was improved we would (yes I did) practice on it for hours. I remember I had six takhties on which I would practice during the evenings and after the “Master Sahaib” would check it , I would have to wash them and put the clay coating on them again and once dried would go at it again.
On the subject of Ball points, yes they are convenient and do not get your hands stained but all of them, starting with Bic and going through Piolt, Pentel, Papermate, Parkers, Cross, Sheaffers and even Mont Blancs and Watermens I have yet to come across a Ball piont that does not develop a little ball of goo at the tip after wrting five or six words. Show me a fountain pen that doen that, not one. I was so glad to come across the new generation “gel” pens because they seem to IMITATE the flow of a fountain pen. So all the time we were writing with the Balls and now the GELonly to get back to FOUNTAINS of my youth. I did use the BALLS during the last 37 years but now I would mot have it any other way. By the way Saad, it is not only the PEN but its USER that is MIGHTIER than the sowrd. I look forward to your comments.
Oh by the way, the reason I came across this site was that I was researching fountain pens that have come into my posession. One of them looked like a Parker 51 but the clip was not the same and I could not read the name right away, the hood of the nib had an arrow, A Parker trademark, so wken I got the magnifying glass out and looked under it, it read “Wing Sung”. So when I googled “WS” I came across this site. I am still trying to find out more about this pen among the other five hundred or so that I now have. This is a black pen with gold flowing lines in in no perticular pattern and a gold rectangle near the lip of the cap. The clip is streamlined and has a “line” from top to bottom and the “WS” trademark at the top. Any information would be greatly appreciated.I do not seen to have any of the pakistani pens all of you mentioned, but on my next trip to Pakistan I will certainly try to get some to add to my collection. I thank you for your patience, and will check this site more often for the information that I seek. Khuda Hafiz.
There is this furniture store in shopping malls in the US called Bombay, they used to sell Montblanc replica fountain pens a few years ago. They put them on clearence when they were discontinued and I bought three pens for $7 each! They look beautiful and extremly elegant just like the real Montblancs and ink cartridges are also readily available, but alas I hardly used them because I have nothing to write thanks to this hi tech age! For those of you who love writing and caligraphy, Barnes n Noble sells Sheaffer caligraphy sets, with different kinds of nibs (”Z-nibs”) and inks and they are pretty reasonably priced too.
I had brought 3 old style eagle fountain pens from Pakistan. Now I cannot find their ink in US. The bottled ink is so out of fashion here that it is not available. Office Depot sells it as part of a complete pen set and costs $46.
I still use fountain pens at work. Writing with a ball point is just not fun! In school, 6th grade onwards, we spent a lot of time improving our handwriting and looking for that perfect, magical pen. My favourite was a Wing Sung which I used from Grade 8 all the way to 12.
I currently use a Cross ( as you can imagine it is a gift because Wing Sung fans won’t spend that much on a fountain pen!) and a very old Parker from God knows how long ago. I have managed to find refills for it.
And one important point, fountain pens are environmentally safer than ball points.
i bought 4 fountain pens on my recent trip to Karachi. Eagle is now being sold for Rs 20