Typewriters from India

The World

We’re looking for a city in India for the Geo Quiz. It’s located in the state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is there, too, some 90 miles northwest of the city we want you to name.

It’s a city that’s sometimes called “the Oxford of the East” because of its many colleges and other educational institutions. Its name is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘punya’ which means ‘virtue’.

And here’s one more clue: Until recently, a company was making manual typewriters at a factory there but that’s history now.

The answer is Pune, India, where the factory for manufacturing company Godrej & Boyce was the last in the world to produce manual typewriters. Production was shut down in 2009, and now the company says there are less than 200 typewriters left on the shelves. We hear from Milind Dukle, General Manager of Godrej & Boyce.

Are you with The World?

The story you just read is available to read for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, the reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.

When you make a gift of $10 or more a month, we’ll invite you to a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of our newsroom to thank you for being with The World.