‘I repair all kinds of pens’: Meet Madurai’s ‘pen doctor’ keeping a 55-year-old trade alive in the age of computers
At around 10 every morning, he returns to the same spot near the East Gate of the Meenakshi Amman Temple. By 2pm, he leaves. At 5pm, he is back again, staying until 8. For 55 years, this has been his routine.His workplace is near Naveen Bakery, where he repairs and services pens – a trade he learnt from his father and has continued even as the world around writing has changed dramatically.“Ever since computers came, my pen-repair business has been struggling. Sales aren’t as they used to be,” he told Heritage Madurai.
The pen repairman works near the East Gate of Madurai’s Meenakshi Amman Temple.
The arrival of computers changed how people worked and wrote, and gradually made the repair of everyday writing instruments less common. Pens that might once have been brought back for servicing are now often replaced. “Few customers come to buy pens or get them serviced,” he said. Yet he has stayed.“I’ve been in this business for 55 years. I’m not interested in doing any other work. Before me, my father was in the business. I grew up working in my father’s business,” he said. His words also explain why the work is more than simply a way of earning a living. It is a trade that has been part of his life since childhood.And despite the shrinking customer base, he still describes his work with the confidence of someone who knows his craft. “I repair all kinds of pens. I can service any kind of pen for you,” he said.
Despite fewer customers, he continues to repair and service pens every day.
His collection reflects just how varied the world of pens can be. “I have old fashioned wooden pens. I have both small and large pens. I have kalingar pens, I also have foreign pens, latest Chinese pens,” he said.There are older styles alongside newer ones, and pens from different places sitting alongside one another. But the basic task remains the same: a customer arrives with a pen that no longer works, and he tries to make it usable again.The customers may be fewer, but some still have a reason to keep using pens. “School children still use pens. That’s what keeps the pen business going,” he said.That dependence on schoolchildren also points to the changing place of the pen in everyday life. For many people, writing has increasingly moved from paper to keyboards and screens. But for school students, the pen remains an essential part of classrooms, examinations and notebooks.For the repairman, those customers provide a link to a trade that has otherwise become increasingly difficult to sustain. His working hours remain remarkably consistent.“I come here at 10 o’clock. I stay here until 2 in the afternoon. I come back at 5 in the evening and stay until 8 at night,” he said.There is no dramatic reinvention in his story. He has not replaced his old trade with a new business or moved away from the work he learnt from his father.
He learnt pen repair by growing up in his father’s business and has continued it for 55 years.
Instead, he has continued doing what he knows, even as fewer people need it. “I’m not interested in doing any other work,” he said. It is a simple statement, but after 55 years, it carries the weight of a decision made long ago and repeated every morning.Computers may have reduced the need for pen repair. Disposable, inexpensive pens may have made replacement easier than servicing. But near one of Madurai’s busiest landmarks, a small old-world trade continues to exist because one man still shows up to do it.At 10am, he returns to his spot. He lays out his pens and waits. And if someone arrives with a pen that needs fixing, he is still there to repair it.
