Star studded stamp paper?

The great leaders who now sit up in the galaxy as stars and planets as children say, are not the stars I refer to. Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, true legends who currently have themselves on stamp paper, now seem to have competition with faces that should hide with humiliation at the thought of being placed in the same league as them.

The postal department is proposing to bring out ‘stars’ on stamps. Shahrukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar and Sania Mirza are the desired few.

First it’s Mahatma Gandhi and his contemporaries, and before we know it, we skip a couple of decades worth of people, and decide to print these young achievers who look like toy cars in front of the former legends who appear as SUVs, placing them side by side.

Sorry, did I miss something, or are we forgetting to consider a few individuals who live/lived in the shadows of an India that shines so bright now? A few to name would be Amartya Sen, Baba Amte and MS Swaminathan.

Youth icons, famous and fan-followed, but are they worthy enough to be printed on paper that will be traveling world over representing our country?

Standing proud at Madame T’s having bagged a couple of awards such as the Padmavibhushan and Padmashree, still appears as a trail of minute ants to reaching the high set standard of being printed on stamp paper.

This whole process being aimed at philately doesn’t say much about our thinking. “Philately is being pushed on the young to promote awareness and national culture” says TOI.

Sania Mirza sitting on a stamp provides us with a great deal of culture? I’ve turned the imaginary stamp in all angles, and I still don’t see it.

Addicted to our taste of pungent curries, we Indians tend to add spice to everything that flies past us, now that list includes our post.

What next? Currency with the face of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan? To promote employment?