How to unclog a Rapidograph
“To me, the American Dream is being able to follow your own personal calling. To be able to do what you want to do is incredible freedom.”
— Maya Lin, architect
1999.
Another package went into the big black Samsonite, and I weighed it to make sure I wouldn’t exceed the luggage limit on my economy ticket to America. “Sit on it and help me lock it,” my mom said, signing off on my packed bags. At the age of twenty-two, I was getting married, graduating, and heading to the land of dreams that I had only seen in movies and architecture books. Anxiety about the unknown future masked the fear of leaving my known life, and I packed the Samsonite to encapsulate my life to the point where my past life was ready to meet my present life. I channeled all my anxiety into physical work, creatively and furiously arranging the architecture stickers on my suitcase to personalize it, make it mine, and make it visible at the baggage claim. At that moment, I was at a pivotal point, and my entire life was ahead of me, with every choice I made shaping my identity. Graduation, marriage, children, a mortgage, car payments, immigration… and those were only the big ones.
This morning, I read an article about immigrants and the items they carried with them to create a home away from home. It got me thinking, what was it that I felt was so important to define me? What was it that I had to make space for and drag half a world away?
Here is continuing “Project 250”, a personal project based on Michael Sorkin’s Two Hundred Fifty Things an Architect Should Know.
18. How to unclog a Rapidograph.
1994.
It was a magical era of computers, electronics and communications in India, with the outsourcing of technology jobs from Silicon Valley. Engineering colleges were churning out programmers to work for- or in- Silicon Valley. This improved the economy of communities and the country, leading everyone to dream of a Silicon Valley career. The pressure was on. No youngling was given a choice to find their own career path. Luckily, my parents, both of them educators, instilled in me the importance of loving what I do and doing what I love, and technology didn’t fit that bill. Architecture it was for me! When I was accepted into the architecture program at Karnataka University, my father met my counselor to pay the fees and secure the spot. The counselor said, “Congratulations on choosing a great profession! But I have to warn you, architecture is a princely course, your material cost will always be higher than your semester fees” as he printed out a list of the required materials and handed it to us.
My Jeep-driving uncle was tasked with purchases in a City with more resources, a few hours drive from where I lived. The counselor did give us a rough estimate of the incoming wallet damage to prepare us. Armed with a wad of cash and his trusty jeep, my dad and uncle set off on their mission. However, when they arrived at the store, my uncle and father were in for a bit of sticker shock! “How much for a bunch of pens?!” my uncle exclaimed in disbelief. They soldiered on, spending two months of their paycheck on technical pens, and managed to purchase everything else they needed, which turned out to be surprisingly compact. “We only needed two small bags in the end,” my father chuckled. “The Jeep was an overkill”. Oh, they were also very unhappy that the ink didn’t come free and they were charged extra.
2023.
At any given moment, you will find a collection of colorful writing instruments at my desk — including my trusty Lamys, Staedtler Triplus Fineliners, Sharpies, highlighters, and a couple of Carmine red pencils. My go-to for writing down meeting notes and important project details remains my Moleskine notebook, while a regular corporate logo paper pad is reserved for scribbling down daily checklists. Although I’ve attempted to go paper-free several times and rely on digital tools on my iPhone, I’m a sucker for pen and paper to jot down my ideas. Sometimes, a simple pink sticky note on my second monitor has been the most effective reminder for me to tackle my tasks right away.
Throughout my twenty-year-long career, I have embraced new technology and tools to improve my productivity. However, somewhere between using AutoCADs and Revits, I have always maintained a soft spot for traditional drafting with technical pens. There is something special about the tactile sensation of putting pen to paper. Even though my drawing skills are now limited to redlining and quality controlling at this point in my career, I still keep my Rapidographs in the drawer below my drafting board. The fact that I only use them lightly has not affected my desire to perform regular maintenance on them though. Cleaning my Rapidographs and adding fresh ink is therapeutic, similar to hand-polishing jewelry to restore its shine. I take pride in ownership.
The Rotring Rapidographs — my very own divas! To clean them, I simply give them a warm water flush and leave them to dry on the softest linen in my house for a quality drying time of at least a day. Once they’re dry, I re-ink them and they’re ready to use. I only use them for drawing lines, starting from 0.05 to 1.2, to ensure that all the lineweights work. Every time I perform this act, I can’t help but smile faintly, and once I’m done, I store them away in a box like time capsules, reminding me of India, my parents, and the moment architecture became a lifestyle for me. These pens and I have spent many nights burning the midnight oil, but we never burned out.
As I stood in the baggage claim area at John Wayne airport today, memories of my past flooded my mind. It was as if my Indian heritage had come full circle, reminding me of where I started my career 24 years ago at the international baggage claim in San Francisco airport. The familiar carousel started to revolve, and I couldn’t help but feel a mix of emotions — nostalgia, pride, and a sense of accomplishment. The rotrings, my trusted companions throughout my career, traveled half the world with me, were still safely tucked away in the drawer, cleaned and maintained — a symbol of my passion for architecture, and what defined me when I left my known world.
