Some objects are valuable because they are rare. Others are valuable because they are expensive. But the most precious objects are often those that quietly carry the weight of history, memory and responsibility.
I want to tell the story of a simple blue fountain pen.
It belonged to my late uncle, Sushil Koirala, former Prime Minister of Nepal.
The story began in 1991, when I was preparing to leave Nepal for higher studies in Russia. Before leaving, I went to seek his blessings. He asked me to bring him a good fountain pen when I returned.
I asked him what colour he preferred.
“Blue,” he said.
Then he explained why:
“The blue of peace, the blue that borders the red valour of the Nepali people in our flag.”
At the time, I did not fully appreciate the depth of that answer.
Today, I do.
For me, those two colours represent an enduring lesson in leadership and public life.
Red represents courage, conviction and struggle. Blue represents peace, patience and reconciliation.
Neither is sufficient by itself.
Courage without patience can become a confrontation. Peace without conviction can become passivity.
True leadership requires the ability to balance both: the courage to stand for what is right and the wisdom to listen, negotiate and bring people together.
From a Promise to a Piece of History
As a student living on a scholarship, buying an expensive fountain pen was not easy. I saved money from whatever work I could find on campus.
On my journey back to Nepal, I eventually found the pen at Dubai airport—a blue Yves Saint Laurent fountain pen.
I brought it home.
Sushil Koirala asked me to ink it and wrote with it.
He was genuinely pleased.
At that moment, it was simply a gift from a nephew to his uncle.
Neither of us could have imagined that the pen would later become connected with one of the most consequential chapters of Nepal’s modern democratic history.
When Sushil Koirala became Prime Minister, I had the opportunity to serve as his secretary.
Nepal was struggling to complete a historic political transition. The country had emerged from conflict and was attempting to reconcile diverse political forces, competing visions and different aspirations for federalism, inclusion, representation and governance.
The challenge was not merely to put legal words on a blank page.
The real challenge was to find common ground in a deeply diverse society.
The Constitution of Nepal was promulgated on September 20, 2015, during Sushil Koirala’s premiership.
It became more than a legal document. It represented an attempt to establish a common framework through which citizens with different identities, histories and political aspirations could share a future.
That remains an important lesson for Nepal:
Democracy is not the elimination of differences. It is the ability to manage differences through institutions, dialogue and compromise.
The blue fountain pen was there during that historic period.
It did not write the Constitution by itself.
People did.
And that distinction matters.
Institutions, constitutions and technologies are ultimately instruments. Their value depends on the people who use them and the purposes for which they are used.
The Instruction Behind the Pen
When Sushil Koirala’s health was failing, he called me to his bedside.
He asked for the blue pen.
I gave it to him.
He returned it to me, together with important documents that were under his responsibility.
Then he gave me an instruction that has stayed with me:
“Never put this pen on paper unless it is for the good of our people.”
It was not merely an instruction about a fountain pen.
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It was an instruction about power and responsibility.
Use whatever authority you possess carefully. Use it for people. Use it for something deserving. Use it in a way that brings honour to the country.
That lesson has become even more relevant today.
The instruments of power are no longer limited to pens, signatures and government offices. They include smartphones, social media platforms, algorithms, databases and artificial intelligence.
The question remains:
What are we using our power for?
The Manuscripts That Changed My Understanding of Legacy
I fully understood the deeper value of the pen when Sushil Koirala shared something deeply meaningful with me—the original handwritten manuscripts of B. P. Koirala, together with other important documents that deserve to be preserved and archived for posterity.
That experience made me realise that preserving a legacy is not simply about protecting an old object.
It is about protecting the original evidence of how a nation thought, struggled and evolved.
A handwritten manuscript contains more than words. It can contain corrections, marginal notes, changes of thought and the physical traces of an author’s intellectual process.
A published text tells us what was ultimately written.
An original manuscript can sometimes help us understand how the thinking developed.
That is why such documents should be treated as primary historical and intellectual sources.
They deserve professional preservation—physically in a world-class university library or professionally governed archival institution, and digitally through authenticated, well-curated repositories accessible to future generations.
Following the transition to his successor, I felt a personal responsibility to contribute to the preservation of this invaluable intellectual and historical legacy.
Since then, I have been contributing my two cents—engaging with various organisations and universities, exploring possibilities and continuing to look for the right institutional platform through which this legacy can be professionally preserved, responsibly accessed and passed on to future generations.
But this cannot be the responsibility of one individual.
It requires historians, archivists, universities, libraries, technology specialists, public institutions and custodians working together.
Heritage is not something we merely possess. Heritage is something we hold in trust.
From Handwriting to Artificial Intelligence
This responsibility has acquired a new dimension in the age of artificial intelligence.
Nepal has recognised the importance of this technological transition through its National Artificial Intelligence Policy.
The opportunity is enormous.
Imagine Nepal’s historic handwritten manuscripts being professionally digitised, transcribed, translated, catalogued and made searchable.
Imagine a student being able to examine an original manuscript alongside an authenticated transcription and historical context.
Imagine researchers around the world accessing Nepal’s intellectual heritage without compromising the physical safety of the original documents.
The physical original provides authenticity.
The digital copy provides accessibility.
AI can help connect the two.
But there is an essential principle we must not forget:
AI can assist an archive; it cannot become the archive.
AI can transcribe handwriting, translate documents, identify patterns and help researchers search thousands of pages. But it can also make errors, remove context or produce confident interpretations that are historically wrong.
Therefore, technology must remain accountable to verified sources and human judgement.
Technology is the bridge to our sources—not a substitute for the sources themselves.
AI can generate text and analyse data, but human beings must provide purpose, values and accountability for the consequences of those outputs.
The future should not simply be framed as human intelligence versus artificial intelligence.
The real opportunity is human intelligence amplified by responsible artificial intelligence.
The Real Gap Is Communication
There is frequent discussion about a “generation gap” between established leadership and today’s youth.
I believe the deeper problem is often a communication gap.
Age is not necessarily the barrier. The inability to listen, understand, explain and engage is.
An older generation possesses experience. A younger generation possesses energy, new ideas and technological fluency.
Nepal needs both.
But bringing them together requires patience.
Leadership does not come from a magical stick.
It comes from patience, consistent process, communication, listening and the ability to convert ideas into meaningful outcomes.
Every policy needs evidence. Every reform needs consultation. Every institution needs systems. Every system needs accountability.
And every generation needs an opportunity to contribute.
This is particularly important when Nepal’s young citizens increasingly demand accountability, opportunity, participation and results.
That should not automatically be interpreted as rejection of democracy. It can also be understood as a demand for a better-functioning democracy.
The challenge is to transform energy into institutional capacity.
A social media post can expose a problem. It cannot, by itself, create sustainable public policy.
A protest can demand accountability. Governance must convert that demand into laws, procedures, budgets, institutions and measurable outcomes.
That is the difference between mobilisation and transformation.
Your Turn to Write
To Nepal’s youth, the message of the blue fountain pen is particularly relevant.
Your “pen” may no longer be a fountain pen.
It may be a keyboard, smartphone, line of code, startup, research paper, database or artificial intelligence system.
The instrument has changed.
The responsibility has not.
Ask yourself:
Are you using your pen to build bridges or create divisions?
Are you using technology to preserve truth or amplify noise?
And perhaps most importantly:
What are you building that will still matter when today’s technology becomes obsolete?
Nepal does not merely need a digitally skilled generation.
It needs a generation that combines technological capability with intellectual responsibility—young people who can code but also think, innovate but also listen, challenge but also build, and use AI without surrendering their judgement to it.
Ink, Pen and Keyboard Diplomacy
I remember another small episode from 2015.
One evening, Sushil Koirala asked for the blue fountain pen. He wrote a name and telephone number on a small piece of paper and asked me to make a call.
The name was India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
I made the call.
It was a brief conversation, but the moment stayed with me.
The world has moved from handwritten telephone numbers to instant digital communication.
Yet the fundamental principle of diplomacy has not changed.
Communication is ultimately about human relationships.
Technology can make communication faster. It cannot automatically make it wiser.
From handwritten letters to fountain pens, from telephones to keyboards, smartphones and AI-assisted communication, the medium keeps changing.
But diplomacy still requires listening, empathy, judgement, trust and the ability to find common ground.
The tools evolve.
Human responsibility remains.
Writing Tomorrow’s History
The blue fountain pen has taught me that history is not something that happens only in textbooks.
It is being written every day.
It is written through political decisions, institutional reforms, scientific discoveries, education, technology, the archives we preserve and the choices ordinary citizens make.
That is why preserving yesterday’s manuscripts and writing tomorrow’s history are not separate tasks.
They are connected.
If we do not preserve the intellectual record of previous generations, we weaken the foundation from which future generations learn.
If we do not learn from that record, we risk repeating old mistakes.
And if we do not give today’s generation the freedom and responsibility to write its own chapter, the country cannot move forward.
The Blank Page Belongs to Us
I still carry Sushil Koirala’s blue fountain pen.
But I no longer think of myself simply as its owner.
I think of myself as its custodian.
I did not create its history.
I inherited a small part of it.
And what we inherit comes with a responsibility to pass it forward.
That is perhaps the deepest lesson of the blue fountain pen.
It began as a simple request from an uncle to a young student leaving Nepal for higher education.
It became part of a Prime Minister’s working life during a consequential period of Nepal’s democratic history.
It was present during the process that culminated in the promulgation of the Constitution.
It became associated with a moment of diplomacy.
It was returned with a moral instruction.
And it eventually led me to think more deeply about preserving the handwritten intellectual legacy of B. P. Koirala.
Today, in the age of Gen Z, digital transformation and artificial intelligence, its message is even broader.
Ink may change.
Technology may change.
Generations may change.
But responsibility does not.
The “pen” in our hands today may be physical or digital. It may be a keyboard, a line of code or an algorithm.
Whatever its form, we should ask:
What are we writing?
Why are we writing it?
Who will benefit from it?
What truth are we preserving?
And ultimately:
What are we leaving behind?
The page ahead of Nepal is still being written.
The blue of peace should guide our intellect.
The red of courage should drive our ambition.
And our technology should serve our humanity—not replace it.
The task before today’s generation is not simply to inherit history.
It is to protect it, learn from it, master the technology of tomorrow and write a future worthy of being remembered.
The blue fountain pen has aged.
The world around it has changed.
But the blank page remains.
The ink is in our hands.
What we write next will become tomorrow’s history.
Editor’s Note: The author served as Secretary to former Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, who was also his uncle. This deeply personal tribute recalls a blue fountain pen gifted by the author to Koirala and reflects on the late prime minister’s legacy, leadership and contribution to the promulgation of Nepal’s Constitution in 2015. The article is published to mark Koirala’s birth anniversary on August 12.
