A college assignment sets three students on the postcrossing path, which is now crowded with postcrossing enthusiasts from across Chennai.
This group is meeting up at Tower Park, Anna Nagar on August 21 (around 4 p.m.), to release a Madras Day postcard, and introduce the wider world to postcrossing.
Jagadeeshwaran P, an electronic media student of St Thomas College of Arts and Science; and Harish D and Mouli Priya PC, both mass communication students of Madras University, are leading this Madras Day meet-up with the support of Prakash Shankar, visual communication faculty at Avichi College of Arts and Science.
In 2021, as part of a communication assignment, Jaisakthivel Thangavel, professor of Journalism and Communications at the University of Madras, asked students to send five postcards each to different addresses they received once they share their details on www.postcrossing.com.
“In a couple of months, I received my first postcard, it was from Netherland with a scenic view of the place and that got me excited about the hobby,” says Priya.
The assignment slowly got them motivated to launch Postally, a Postcrossing initiative led by students. On February 13 (World Radio Day), at the first postcrossing meet-up at Nageswara Rao Park in Mylapore, they launched their exclusively-designed 4x6 size postcard. Since then they have brought out thematic postcards keeping various occasions in mind, some of them being for World Day of Social Justice (February 20), International Mother Language Day (February 21), World Wildlife Day (March 3), Chennai Book Fair, Women’s Day, Tiger Day, and most recently for Independence Day.
The three share the roles. While Priya pens the words, Jagadeeshwaran does the design and Harish takes care of the logistics.
“Unlike the regular postcards, here the main aim is to understand the reason for bringing it out, explain it so that the receiver learns from the piece of information and design,” says Prakash.
There is a lot of research that goes before releasing these cards. “For Independence Day, we brought out a card with 14 prime ministers, which meant browsing for right information and putting them in capsule format with images,” says Priya.
The Madras Day card has pieces of history from three centuries, says Jagadeeshwaran.
The friends from Avachi College say more than making a small margin of profit for the effort and time they spend, the larger goal of Postally is to revive the habit of sending postcards.
“It is fun to take a break from Instagram and Facebook and send a postcard to someone in a distant land, and thereby get to learn about the heritage, tradition and culture of another country,” says Priya.
The cards are priced between ₹10 and ₹ 25 and the sender bears the stamp cost while postcrossing it.
In a month, Postally sells 50 thematic cards.
To register for the event, call Prakash at 9884148585, Jegadeesh at 6382648953
