I once bought the same pencil twice because I could not believe it didn't work.

Some background. I take most of my notes with a mechanical pencil, and for years that pencil was a Camlin Novell. Rs 20, available at every stationery shop. I believed there was no innovation left in mechanical pencils. If you wanted a choice, the choice was lead size.

I had one real complaint. If the lead stuck out even a millimeter too far beyond the metal guide, it snapped. Several times a page, usually mid-sentence.

Then I saw a YouTube video about the Zebra DelGuard, a pencil with a mechanism built to prevent exactly that. It cost Rs 500, quite a jump from my trusty Novell. I hesitated, then pulled the trigger.

I was super excited when it arrived. The lead still broke.

I was so sold on the idea that I assumed mine was faulty and ordered a second one. Surprise, surprise: the lead still broke. Maybe it works for other hands. It did not work for mine, twice.

I kept using it anyway, because it was better built than the Novell. But it was a Rs 500 pencil doing a Rs 20 pencil's job.

A couple of years ago, another YouTube video. You would think I had learned. This time it was the Pentel Orenz Nero, at Rs 3,000. Six times the DelGuard. A hundred and fifty times my Novell.

I bought it, and I have since filled several notebooks with it. Want to guess how many times the lead has broken? ZERO. The trick is simple: a thin sleeve covers the lead and slides back as you write, so the lead never sticks out far enough to snap. It also feeds itself, so there is no clicking every few lines.

Whoever designed it, you are a godsend. I love you.

Three pencils, three kinds of product. The Novell asks for almost nothing and delivers exactly what it promises. The Orenz Nero asks for a lot and earns every rupee. The DelGuard asks for more and gives you the same broken lead.

Lately I have been thinking about which one I am.

I cannot point to a single moment. It is more a feeling that has followed me through my career, and my life in general: that I demanded a lot, and maybe did not deliver what I was supposed to. Too much asked, too little offered. I have been a DelGuard.

I want to be an Orenz Nero. Or a Camlin Novell. Either one is honest.

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