Stamp of approval: Rare collections from the South India Philatelists’ Association

Its younger members may have never posted a letter. Yet, the 65-year-old South India Philatelists’ Association, Chennai, stays vibrant with collectors who celebrate the stories every stamp tells

For a brief hour on a searing May morning I am transported to deepest Africa, without ever leaving Chennai. Sitting in the 1900-built Electric Theatre, among the first cinema houses in South India and now home of the Philatelic Bureau, which flanks Anna Road Post Office, I journey to Biafra, once a secessionist state in Nigeria.

Rolands Nelson, a 76-year-old retired Chief Engineer from the Highways Department, who collects stamps of countries that no longer exist, showcases his collection of Biafra in a presentation — among them, stamps of an Igbo mother and child and a decapitated body highlighting the civilian massacre – holding forth on Biafra’s brief time as an independent country between 1967 and 1970.

G Rammohan, an Indian Railways engineer who helped rebuild Nigeria after the civil war that followed, embellishes the talk with his experiences. A presentation by G Anil Reddy on stamps of the United Nations issued simultaneously in Geneva, New York and Vienna, and the latest stamps issued by the Indian Department of Posts, concludes with the introduction of new members, who have signed up from as far as Thiruvananthapuram and Tiruchi, ending with a round of warm hellos to Satyanarayana Murthy who is visiting from Tirupati.

Here, in this old white and red-trim building fronted by a red cast-iron pillar box of the Travancore Anchal, is where the members of the South India Philatelists’ Association (SIPA) meet on the second Sunday of every month. Before mobile phones, the only reminder for the scheduled meet was an announcement in The Hindu classifieds.

“SIPA is affiliated with the Philatelic Congress of India and was started by five keen stamp collectors of Madras on December 30, 1956,” says Mahesh Parekh, an optician and the secretary, SIPA. “Within six months SIPA designed and issued a First Day Cover for the Centenary of the First War of Indian Independence (1857). It is now gearing up to host a national-level exhibition at Olympia Tech Park, Guindy, between August 13 and 15.”

SIPA has brought out many special covers to create awareness. Mahesh himself collects postal cancellations from 1854-1874, with a focus on Aden and Singapore, both British colonies then. G Amarchand, president, SIPA, has among his collection the very rare Red Scinde Dawk, issued in 1852.

Encouragement for SIPA, which has 600 members, with a life membership costing ₹2,500 and no age limit, has been aplenty from successive Chief Postmasters General of the Tamil Nadu circle, whether for weekly exhibitions at the bureau or contests and summer workshops for school children.