One would have come across many numismatists or philatelists. But here is ‘one' with a difference. Meet G. Sri Ramarao, a retired naval officer, who took up collecting stamps and coins post his retirement in 1993. His collection is based on a theme, and it revolves around music.
“Music has been my passion since childhood, and my collection is primarily focussed on stamps and coins that are linked to the world of music,” says the retired commander.
Passionately in love with music, he joined Andhra University at the age of 52, after a premature retirement, to acquire a diploma in Carnatic vocal.
To enhance his love for music, he revived his childhood hobby of philately and started to collect first day covers along with stamps from across the world, especially the ones that were printed on famous musicians, music instruments or buildings that were associated with music.
Today, he has got a collection of over 3,500 stamps on this theme. “To extend the collection, I also started to collect coins that had depiction of music in some form or the other and so far I have collected about 120 coins,” he said.
Broadening his collection on the theme, he further moved to currency notes, miniature musical instruments and autographs of famous musicians.
At present he boasts of over 60 different currency notes from various countries, about 45 miniature models and over 55 autographs that range from M.S. Subbulakshmi to Zakir Hussain and from Sreepada Pinakapani to M. Balamuralikrishna.
At the age of 72, he still spends about five hours a day on the Internet, surfing for latest collections, corresponding with his friends from the community which is spread across the globe and writing footnotes for his collection.
He has participated in about 12 national and state level competitions and has won medals. “Winning medals is not important, for me, participation is important. This passion of mine keeps me young and my main idea is to inculcate such hobbies among the young minds,” he said.
It was not always music for the naval officer. As a young officer, he actively participated in the 1971 war with Pakistan.
He was part of the missile boat squad that bombarded Karachi harbour.
In his youth, he represented Andhra University as part of the Sea Cadets Corps in the Republic Day parade in 1962.
