WRITE SIDE OF HISTORY

The enduring legacy of Ratnam Pen Works, a swadeshi shop that once impressed Mahatma Gandhi

-  AMEY MANSABDAR/ Rajahmundry

The smell of incense, the rhythmic chanting of devotees on the banks, and the distant rumble of trains crossing the iconic Godavari bridge—these form the heartbeat of Rajahmundry, a city of deep culture and history in eastern Andhra Pradesh.

But there is another pulse deep inside town, in a narrow lane called Rangireju Peta. A small house-cum-shop—with its tiled roof and weathered name board—takes you back to 1932. That was the year Ratnam Pen Works started arming Indians with their indigenous weapons of intellect: a humble fountain pen that was as much a writing tool as a lesson in atmanirbharta.

The story of the pens began with a craftsman's curiosity. In 1928, a village accountant approached Kosuri Satyanarayana, a skilled goldsmith, with a broken fountain pen. It had a gold nib. While repairing it, he and his brother Kosuri Venkata Ratnam had a thought—why not create a pen that was not a luxury import but a piece of swadeshi pride?

The brothers officially set up their workshop and the early years were about global materials and desi craft. They imported high-quality celluloid from Germany, while the nibs were handcrafted in gold. At the time, the pens cost ₹15, which was a lot for the time.

The turning point came through a challenge from Mahatma Gandhi. Answering his call for more desi products, the brothers sent a pen to him. Gandhi initially refused to believe that such a sophisticated instrument could be produced entirely on Indian soil. He suspected it was merely a reassembled foreign product.