I’m currently at a stage where seeing a pen makes me
extremely wary. See, this year, unlike my previous years of studying to be an
engineer, I’m studying regularly for a series of entrance exams, pre-placement
aptitude tests among other things. I’m more of a write and learn kind of a
person-I require lots of written practice before I can even consider the
thought of giving an exam (It has probably got to do with the fact that I have
a 1000 thoughts running through my head at a given second where it’s very easy
for the academic stuff to get lost :D)
I’m rambling..... let me get to the point. So as I said
lots of written practice which means rough notebooks and pens, lots of pens and
lots of ink. But for the past few months it’s like pens have started hating me-
The moment I’m all ready to start studying (Believe me it takes a lot of
coaxing myself to get there) I take a pen and my rough book, open the cap of
the pen and
Start writing.
Start writing.
Start writing…..
At that split second my pen stops working - the pen
with the new refill stops working can you believe it….
And this is not just one isolated incident. Something
or the other keeps happening to my pens.
Sometimes the ink becomes so light that I’m tempted to
start writing with invisible ink.
Other times the refill of the pens looks full but
there’s no ink coming out…..
I have tried getting the pens to start working by
shaking them, quickly passing the refill through a low flame, blowing air into
the refill. I’ve also come to the realization that if a pen is dropped nib
first, it bounces (Another addition to the list of useless information stored
in my brain). In short I’ve tried every trick in the book. Buying new pens
seems like a meaningless exercise now-a-days because I know I will be able to
use them without any hassles for three to four days at best.
So I’ve now been forced to face the harsh truth. My
life is being affected by a very rare arrangement of planets which is affecting
my day-to-day writing (Thank God for MS Word). I’m now going through something
I like to call the Pen Shani (Shani is Hindi for Saturn-every person is said to
pass through a phase where he suffers from a lot of misfortunes on account of the
influence of Shani)
The only option I have is to wait it out. Imagine what
the pandit’s reaction would be if I went to a temple to ask for a remedy to the
problem. For now, I’ve discovered that stealing a pen from a friend and refusing outright to return it gives me a good performance from the said stolen
pen. So till things get better I’m going to manage with my “borrowed” pens.
