Welcome to Issue#46.

In this issue, Karthik shares a fascinating piece about recognizing a fountain pen in an unexpected context, and I write about the return of an old favourite.

Fountain pens have a habit of turning up in the most unlikely of places, usually with tongue firmly in cheek. My favourite such instance was in the 2011 movie adaptation of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" in which Control, the Chief of MI6, is shown using a fountain pen with bright green ink to sign documents. This wasn't just any fountain pen, however -- it was an Osmia Supra, made in Germany during the 1930s to the 1940s. Whoever came up with the choice of pen seems to have had a good sense of humour, as well as a knowledge of fountain pens and their history.

Closer home, the classical singer Kaushiki Chakraborty seems to be partial to a Lamy Dialog, going by a television interview she gave from a few years ago. Similarly, Sanjay Subrahmanyan prefers a Ranga Dip Pen, as seen on a certain popular online video platform. These two made an impression on me, thanks to my appreciation for their music.

The story I stumbled upon recently, however, is ever so slightly different. Jon Borthwick Higgins is not a name that many people today are familiar with. Growing up in a household obsessed with Carnatic Music in the early 1980s, I once heard a very unfamiliar voice singing a familiar classic on the radio. To my untrained young ears, everything sounded right, and yet something was very different. Paternal clarification to my enquiries revealed that the singer was one "Jon Higgins", but no further details were forthcoming. I was instantly fascinated, but had no way of finding out more at that time.

Later in life, with the advent of the internet, more information came forth. Jon Higgins was no ordinary human. The term "Polymath" might perhaps do him some justice. A professor of Music at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and an established singer in the Western Classical tradition, he made his way to India in the late 1970s to study Carnatic Music. Study he did -- he was one of the first singers from outside the country to perform at the annual Tyagaraja Aradhana at Thiruvarur (he wasn't the first; that achievement belongs to Harold S. Powers, another professor of music who preceded Jon Higgins by a decade or so). Denied entry into the Krishna temple at Udupi because of the colour of his skin, he sang "Krishna Nee Begane Baro" at the gates of the temple, thus moving the powers that were into allowing him entry.

An unabashed fan of his music, I often listen to the few pieces featuring Jon Higgins available on the video platform that I shall not name. These pieces are not videos in the true sense, since Professor Higgins was probably never videographed here; the audio was likely digitised from cassette tapes, and tends to be accompanied by a picture or two of Higgins Bhagavathar (which sobriquet he earned during his time here). One such picture happens to show Jon Higgins with a Tambura. This is a picture that I've seen too many times to count over the years, and paid almost no attention to.

Recently, however, I noticed a small detail in the picture - Jon sports a familiar-looking clip in his shirt pocket. The clip looked very much like that of a Lamy Safari. I was a little shocked, because I had always thought that the Lamy Safari was a fairly modern pen, and Jon Higgins had passed away when he was not yet fifty, in 1984. A little digging around showed that the Lamy Safari was released in 1980; the picture must then have been taken sometime between 1980 and 1984. Jon was probably a reasonably early adopter of the Lamy Safari.

There was obviously much more to the man than just his music; I for one would have loved to find out what he thought of the Lamy Safari, and the other pens that he used. These are details that have likely been lost to time. I will have to settle for being happy with the fact that I spotted a classic fountain pen in the pocket of a favourite classical musician!

One of Krishna Inks’ most well-known as well as notorious inks is Jungle Volcano. It is well-known as it is a spectacular ink. It is notorious because earlier versions (from more than 6 years ago) required a lot of care to use safely.

My bottle of the old Jungle Volcano had run out - quite literally, when I dropped it on the floor sometime in 2020. Ever since then, I had resisted the urge to pick it up again in spite of it’s beautiful vibrant colour.

Recently, Dr Sreekumar has been updating a lot of old favourites, making them easier to use. So, when I got a chance to pick up a bottle of the updated Jungle Volcano at the Chennai Pen Show earlier this year, I jumped at it.

Here is the current version. Its appeal is immediately visible in this swatch - the orange and gold-green are simply gorgeous!

Share your take on fountain pens and related things in one (or more!) of our upcoming issues.

Any and all content you share will belong to you and will be credited to your name (or a pen name of your choice) and linked to any of your online profiles. Ideal content would be a write-up between 200 and 400 words with 1 to 5 images.

Here are a few things that can go in the Fountain Pen Weekly:

• Pen / ink / paper ownership experience

• Favorites in FP, ink, paper etc.

• Your social handles with your FP content - Insta, FB, Twitter, Reddit

• Any FP-related content you want to call out - articles, podcasts, videos.

If you have any other ideas as well, do share, and I will be happy to think about it.

That’s all from me this week.

Questions? Feedback? Just hit reply on this email or write in at [email protected]