Revenue not so much, but recognition is returning to Sulekha’s sought after inks

Sulekha, the socially conscious 90-year-old brand of fountain pen ink has already regained some of its past glory, having resumed production during the first COVID-19 lockdown four years ago

It was during the first COVID-19 lockdown that Sulekha retrieved itself from the pages of history to resume production, and on Monday, exactly four years later, the 90-year-old brand of fountain pen ink has already regained some of its past glory. So much so that during a pen show in Chennai earlier this month, this Kolkata-based company ran out of stock. This is apart from a strong presence on social media and a physical presence in important city events, including book fairs.

“In terms of brand recall, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that Sulekha is undisputedly top of the mind, as I was pleasantly surprised to note at the Chennai pen show. So overwhelming was the response that we ran out of stock in certain categories midway of the three-day event,” Kaushik Maitra, managing director of Sulekha Works Limited, told The Hindu.

Also read | Indian ink-maker scripts a new chapter 

“Sulekha has always enjoyed a special place in the hearts of the discerning. Even if one were to discount the brand’s close association with the freedom struggle, its popularity is still phenomenal as it is one of the few home-grown brands from our childhood that is still fighting it out,” Mr. Maitra said.

Sulekha was started in 1934 by two brothers, Sankaracharya and Nanigopal Maitra, after Mahatma Gandhi gave the call for swadeshi stationery. They first set up a small factory in Rajshahi (now in Bangladesh) and in 1939, shifted to the then Calcutta, where business soared. During the 1960s and 1970s, the brand remained a household name, with the company manufacturing over one crore 60 ml bottles of ink annually in its heyday.

Then, in 1988, business had to shut down, not so much because there was a decline in the use of fountain pens but because of aggressive trade unionism that also hit several other establishments in Bengal. Sulekha shifted to homecare and hygiene care products, and later also began to take up solar projects.

It was during the COVID-19 pandemic that the company plucked its ink chapter from the pages of history to write a new script. “We resumed the production of ink on a commercial level during the first phase of the COVID induced lockdown. That was the time when people, locked out as they were, were forced to seriously contemplate the various reasons that we were long pointing out for the use of the fountain pen,” Mr. Maitra said.