Behind the Quill

               “Rita Skeeter reached into her crocodile bag and drew out a long acid green quill and a roll of parchment…”.That quill, known as the quick quotes quill, transformed a normal sentence like “Testing...my name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter” into “Attractive, blond Rita Skeeter, forty three, whose savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations”. This rather self obsessed quill that had a knack for spouting out eloquent sentences fascinated me ever since I first encountered it in ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’.

          Getting one, albeit a non magical one, was a rather serendipitious moment for me. Here I’d like to share it with all you quill dreams readers.

          During the course of my exchange program I went on a lot of tours. At this time last year I was on a Eurotour with over 50 other exchange students. It was on the Italian leg of the tour when we visited the beautiful city of Siena that I first encountered the quill. I was browsing through the shops for souvenirs and when in a stationary store I stopped in my tracks when I spotted it…the most beautiful pen I had ever seen. I stood admiring it for a few minutes and then rushed to share this find with my friend Volimte.We ooh-ed and aah-ed over the simple beauty of the quill before deciding that we could not go without having it for ourselves. She bought a green one and I a lovely deep pink one. For the rest of the day I was bursting with joy[no exaggeration] reveling in the bliss of having bought the most beautiful pen in the world.

          The next morning when I was looking through my things in my bag, I couldn’t find it but quickly put it down to the fact that I’d perhaps forgotten it in the bus the previous night and figured it would turn up when we got back on the bus for the day’s journey. It did not despite my searching long and hard and I spent the entire day distraught and worried about having lost it so soon.

          Later at night one of my friends came to my room. He’d heard me talk about losing it and immediately thought back to the stuff he had found while on bus cleaning duty. He’d gone back to look through the stuff and having found the quill, came looking for me right after. I squealed and couldn’t thank him enough. It was so gratifying to get it back.

          I thought back to this memory the other day when I wrote with it for the very first time[yes a year after buying it].you see, I couldn’t find a cartridge that would fit in so I chose the old fashioned route and dipped it into an inkpot, writing the way it was meant to be written with.

          And sometimes, that’s all you need to start writing………..

By Nirmitee Mehta