Hindu gods have made their way into US postage, with an Atlanta-based company headed by an Indian American launching a series of legally valid custom-made postage stamps. First of these stamps have been collected by the city-based philatelist D. Satya Buddu.
The www.usa-postage.com launched seven stamps customised with Hindu deities for the Indian community in America. While Indian Postal stamps do not depict Hindu deities on a large scale, for the first time real U.S. postage depicts the exclusive designs of the deities on a colourful 20-stamp commemorative sheet.
Stamps priced at 44 cents for a single one and 18.99 dollars for a book have been created in seven spiritual designs: Goddess Lakshmi , Sai Baba, Lord Venkateswara, Murugan, Vinayaka, Lord Shiva and his consort Parvathi (together) and Sri Krishna. The company made use of a six-year-old US Postal Service (USPS) rule that permits issue of customised postages to launch the series. These postages were not issued by the US Postal Service, but were valid as stamps. They are not called stamps, but postages and can be used like normal stamps, according to the USPS, Mr. Satya Buddu explains.
