Feelings, humor, Humour, Life, Nostalgia, parenting, Relationships, School Days, short story, Thoughts

Pilot Pen

“Pilot Pen” the name itself makes me nostalgic. It brings back the fond memories of those “fun-filled” and “carefree” School Days. Pilot pen used to be one “priced-possession” during those days.

We all used to display this pen with pride in our shirt pockets. Although, it didn’t have fancy looks, like we get these days, nevertheless, that subtle appearance used to add value to our pencil-boxes. It was a humble plain-white pen with a silver-coloured metal clip in the front. I am not sure whether I got swayed away with those “classy” looks or the “pilot” in its name allured me.

The Pilot Pen

Fast forward a couple of decades, from my ‘pilot-pen” days to 2021, my daughter gets promoted to grade 5. And, with this comes the transition from writing with a pencil to writing with a pen. I think more than my daughter, I was excited to see that now she’ll be using a pen to write in her school notebooks.

I thought of getting a pilot-pen for her, as she graduates from a “pencil-student” to a “pen-student”. Before telling her about my plans of getting her a pilot pen, I thought of asking her about the kind of pen that she would want.

“I have already got a few pens in my kit that I got from my school”, she replied.

I had imagined that she’ll come up with an idea of some fancy pen, but conversely, to my surprise, she was already happy with what she already had. We teach our kids to be content with what you have, still, such a reply is something we parents aren’t prepared for; at least I was not.

I told her about my fascination with pilot pen and shared how my friends and I used to flaunt our priced-possession. I googled its picture and excitedly showed it to her, however, my zeal got washed away with her response,

“This is plain white?”

She might have continued further to express her “surprise”, rather I should call it a “shock”; but I think she ate her words, seeing my smile fading away.

Like a spirited salesperson, I did not give up and quickly shifted gears from its appearance to the performance. I started talking about the way it writes. I told her how sharp and fine its tip is and how it can make her handwriting look really beautiful. I am not sure whether she actually got influenced or she gave up to my enthusiasm for the pen.

I went to my nearby stationery shop and asked for a pilot pen and he showed me a couple of options, but I was pretty clear with my choice of buying that “plain white” pen with a “blue dot” on its cap.

I was elated to see the same old pen in my hand again. I excitedly handed over the pen to my daughter. She kept the pen aside in her kit and started with her classes. I was a little upset that she didn’t show any interest in her new pen.

I don’t know what came to her mind when she picked up this pen a few minutes later and started writing, but incidentally, it didn’t work. She called me and shared her displeasure, I told her not to worry and I did what was hard-wired into my brain since childhood, I shook the pen and tried to write and voila, it worked.

A moment later, I realized that there are blue spots on her fingers. While I was trying to check for the ink spots on her notebook, something struck my mind and I fearfully turned back and I was shocked to see the visual. While I was trying to make the pen work by shaking, its ink got splashed over the wall behind me. It appeared like some budding artist had made a failed attempt on “modern-art”.

A minute later I found myself with a mop and a cleaning cloth, as the ink had spread all over on the floor, chair, table and pointless to say on the wall. Thankfully the paint on the walls was washable because of which the ink got removed without impacting the paint.

I went back to the shop and got it replaced with a newer version of my favourite pen. I handed it over to her, but this time I didn’t tell her anything about the pen. She kept it in her bag and kept working with the other pen she had. I thought, maybe I was imposing my choices on her. I guess we should let our kids develop their own choices rather than forcing our biographies on them.

New Version

But in just a day’s time, the pilot pen did what I had always liked it for, “the magic”. Since she was not able to find her pen, she picked up pilot pen and started writing with it and needless to say, she loved it. Although it was a new version, it was still a “Pilot Pen“.

26 thoughts on “Pilot Pen”

  1. Bhai, Its again a delite to read your experience and it actually reminded me of my childhood memories with Reynolds ball point pen. When we used to put its cap between our fingers to break the clip and feel like an accomplishment. And at the same time, we also used to make sure that no one’s pen cap was left intact in the class.. Those were innocent pranks.😁

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  2. All the childhood memories just splashed over in front of my eyes ,well said!
    let the children explore their own world so that they can also tell to their children about their childhood mem

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  5. Fantastic, this again took me to my childhood memories and the conversation I had with my daughter during her transition from pencil to pen. Memories and time to be cherished. I love reading your articles, blogs; very realistic and connect the dots somewhere 🙂.

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  6. Dear Amit,

    It is indeed very well written. Especially the manner in which you took the writing from the present ( you think that your daughter getting ready for a pen) to past (what that pen meant to you (and the reader)) to how the past and present experience of the pen is the same (pen leaking).

    And eventually the ending…simply wow…. coz. the way you curved the message from

    Hhmmm…not to force our biographies on the next gen…to aakhir mein toh Pilot he liya….vah…

    Samrat

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  7. Wonderful sharing! My old memories also got refreshed 😊 I think we can spend days with school days memories and it’s great experience sharing our memories with our kids we want them to live with our biographies to make old days live. We should also respect their emotions and feelings. Let’s be ourselves a child and live our childhood with our children ❤💕. Felt good, and went to my childhood days.

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  8. Hi Amit, this blog is “Bouquet of Emotions!” made us “nostalgic” about school days, “Excited” as parent, enthusiastic to cope up with Next Gen, list is really long.

    As a reader your writing surprise me as how you present your views in a simple and joyful incident of our regular life.

    Coming back to blog, and my take away is eminent truth of life is that is “CHANGE”. A fancy possession of one generation, is just “Plain White” to next and this is applicable to our everyday’ s life too. Those who embrace change (as you bought the renewed avatar of Pilot Pen) can only be Survive (happy is apt here for the context of this blog).

    Cheers and Keep writtng!

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    1. Have you heard of “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White? It’s a marvelously helpful little book for writers. Published by The Macmillan Company. You may enjoy and benefit from it.

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    2. Thanks Vinayak! I really loved reading your comments. Thanks for the kind words, I’m really motivated to write more.
I’m happy I could take you back to your school days. ☺️

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  10. Lovely read once again. Seems you have written my story or everyone belong to that era . My daughter’s are still pencil students and certainly, taking a leaf from experience, I would rather let them pick the pen that they would want to write with.

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