Case Overview

“Handwriting activates a wider range of interconnected brain regions responsible for learning and memory” – Charlotte Hu (the famous American pianist), Scientific American. In today’s world, digital technologies are replacing pens and inks. The pen is not as mighty as before. Now, the keyboard is the mightiest. People of all age groups are susceptible to “pen-demic” i.e. forgetting the art of writing. However, research has proven that writing with hand improves cognitive processing. That is why individuals like Mr. Kaushik Maitra are interested in bringing back people to writing with fountain pens and ink. Mr. Kaushik Maitra is the Managing director of Sulekha (the oldest Swadeshi ink maker). For many years, he lived in Canada. In late 2005, he returned home from Canada. He was hoping to spend his time in a fruitful occupation back home in India. Then, came good news in the form of a stay order by the Kolkata High Court on the liquidation proceedings of the Sulekha company. Luckily, he got the opportunity to revive Sulekha. The Sulekha company originally belonged to his ancestors - Mr. Shankaracharya Maitra and Mr. Nani Gopal Maitra. In 1932, these two brothers received the recipe for ink making from Mr. Satish Chandra Dasgupta – the chief chemist of Bengal Chemicals. On receiving a request from Mahatma Gandhi to make a swadeshi ink in 1932, Mr. Dasgupta developed the “Krishnadhara” and sold the ink through khadi outlets. To continue the swadeshi spirit, the Maitra brothers started the commercial production of fountain pen ink in 1934 in Rajshahi (now in Bangladesh) by founding the Sulekha company. From the 1940s to the 1980s, the Sulekha name was synonymous with fine ink. “Sulekha” means fine handwriting. Sulekha not only prepared ink but also manufactured fountain pens. Sulekha ink was used for writing as well as for drawing. Consumer households used to buy Sulekha ink regularly to satisfy the needs of the whole family. However, fate had other plans for Sulekha. The company’s golden days came to an abrupt halt in the late 1980s. Due to militant trade unionism, Sulekha stopped all production in 1988 and it went into liquidation in 1991. And, thankfully, the Kolkata High Court’s stay order came at the right time for Mr. Kaushik Maitra. Fast forward to 2025 and we find Mr. Kaushik Maitra successfully reviving the Sulekha company. Sulekha now sells fountain pen ink (more than fifty variants), fountain pens (about thirty varieties) and a few stationery items, such as – diaries and folders. (Refer: Table 1 in Annexure 1 for the quantity of products that have been sold by Sulekha in the past three years). Sulekha recorded an annual growth of 24.6% in all categories including inks, fountain pens and notebooks in 2024-2025, yet the question remained—how to sustain this revival? What strategies should Sulekha adopt going forward? Should the company, in alignment with its Swadeshi hat, focus on the mass market that struggles to compete with digital alternatives and rising costs? Or, should Sulekha create products for the luxury segment and market fountain pens and ink through premium positioning?

Keywords