Demise of Pen

An extraordinary event happened way back in my life...

When I reached sixth grade, I was allowed to use pen. Before that, we were forced to use pencils, in an effort to improve our hand-writing and in cognizance of the fact that as toddlers, we were prone to making typos. My earlier prized-possessions of pencils, rubbers and sharpeners were replaced by pens, ink and ball-point, chinese and local, long and small, paid for and bartered. Along also came the arsenal of nibs of varying points, inkpots of differing shades, refills of varying length and use-by dates etc. I was blissful.

An extra-ordinary event happened recently in my life...

I actually finished a pen; in other words, I actually ran out the refill in a pen. Seemingly innocuous, but I cant remember the last time, I actually used up an entire pen. Well, to be fair, I didnt really use this particular pen by myself (Heck, I dont even know how I landed up with this pen in my pocket); nonetheless, I actually witnessed the historical event. I am not sure off late, how many of us witness a pen being used up entirely!!

So an extraordinary realization happened recently in my life...

I cant remember the last time I bought a pen. I think I might have forgotten how to do that. But, I still have a few dozens of pen lying at various corners of my house, in my car, in my bag and in my office drawers. In fact, I suspect that the recent clogging up of my water-pipes might have been contributed by some pen or the other finding its way there. A little flash-back revealed a number of times when I came to office with one pen and left with something entirely different, when I borrowed a pen from a fellow traveller to fill in the immigration card and absent-mindedly put it in my pocket, and so on and so forth and vice versa.

Thus ends an extraordinary era, well, almost...

There will be no more pens; only PDAs; there will be no more letters, only emails.