The thoughts and world of school stationery can trigger an uncontrollable tear of nostalgia and a whole range of emotions. From writing with fountain pens and feeling like a sophisticated adult about to determine the fate of the nations to conquering the literary giants armed with Wren & Martin books — they were some great years. Here are a list of nostalgic school supplies that children from India were used to when they were growing up!
Sumit Augustine, part of the Trumpet Contributor Family, hails from Kerala but studied (and lives in) in Dubai. She shares her memories of securing school supplies when she was a child.
Bata Shoes
There will never be an Indian student who has not worn ‘the’ coveted Bata school shoes. Bata used to be a staple in every Indian household with school age children. What’s more, as expat kids who got to spend our long summer holidays in India, we would often hoard on Bata black and white pairs of shoes so that we had ample stocks to last us until our summer holidays for the next academic year. Perhaps that explains why I still hoard on Bata school shoes for my little man when we go to India every year.
Fountain Pens
Fountain pens were like the mighty sword that instigated the feeling of responsibility in children becoming young adults. As children we would be eager to be promoted to Grade 5 just so that we could start writing on our notebooks with fountain pens. The ‘Hero’ brand of fountain pens used tobe our ‘Hero’ pens because let’s admit it, opening the ink bottle to fill up the Hero pen invoked the Shakespearean in us as if we were ready take on the world with our literary prowess. The only downside to using fountain pens – or pens in general, we could erase our mistakes when we wrote with a pencil but once you write with a pen, you can only scratch your mistakes out but never eliminate them – a hard lesson to be learnt indeed.
Geometry boxes
Geometry boxes by the names of Natraj, Oxford and Camel were in abundance as kids progressed to the higher grades and that was one stationery that a child could not do without because you’d often use your geometry box as your stationery box too. Also, Geometry boxes combined with fountain pens were a vibe where you began feeling like a grown-up.
Milton stainless steel tiffin boxes
For those days of extra classes and perhaps awkward feelings of hunger in school, Milton’s stainless steel tiffin boxes were a relief. As kids, we’d often wait for our recess period to open our tiffin boxes to eat a variety of home cooked meals with our friends. Because the material was stainless steel, it held food according to temperature so as kids we would often have steaming hot favourites from perhaps every state in India to savour in school.
Cursive Writing Books
As kids learning to write this was one book we would never enjoy writing on because cursive writing was an art that had to be mastered with practice (and I have still not mastered it despite completing school eons ago!). In today’s day and age when schools are pushing for gadgets, I doubt children of today would learn to use these cursive writing books.
Wren & Martin English Grammar Books
This book used to be cherished by all the wordsmiths of school. Not a day went by where we did not learn prose and grammar from Wren & Martin. Nowadays this is being taught by Baby Shark and Cocomelon.
