Indian cinema: A philatelic history

Over the years, the Indian Department of Posts has published nearly 40 stamps, first day covers (FDCs) or cancellations and post cards covering Indian cinema personalities or happenings. The first one of the series was published on April 30, 1970 to commemorate the birth centenary of Dadasaheb Phalke. And the last one in 2011 was a set of six postage stamps on a miniature sheet to commemorate ‘Great Actresses of Indian Cinema’. The celebrated six are Kanan Devi, Devika Rani, Nutan, Sabitri Chattopadhyay, Meena Kumari and Leela Naidu.

Nargis, Sadhna and Madhubala are other Indian movie actresses who have had stamps issued in their names. Nargis was the first to be thus recognised – on December 30, 1993.

Hiralal Sen, who shot and exhibited films in the late 1890s, well before Phalke made Raja Harishchandra, has not been forgotten by India Post either. It published a series of seven FDCs to celebrate Cinepex-90 (11-18 January, 1990), organised by Cine Central. A sketchy portrait of Hiralal Sen was used on the FDC as ‘cancellation’, the ‘most trustworthy’ mark on FDCs, without which they are valueless.

In 1978, India Post published a commemorative stamp on dance maestro Uday Shankar on his first death anniversary. The stamp bears an image from the only film he directed, Kalpana.  Between 1990 and 1992, commemorative stamps were also issued on MG Ramachandran and Dinanath Mangeshkar.

 

A postage stamp on Satyajit Ray was issued in 1994. This is a different type of stamp called ‘Setenant’. It is a set of two stamps of different values but printed in such a way that one overlaps the other. When placed together, they look like one. A similar honour was bestowed on two other celebrated film personalities — KL Saigal and Mehboob Khan.

The stamp, the FDC and the brochure on Mehboob, released in 2007 to mark his birth centenary, bears the picture of Nargis Dutt from Mother India as this was 50th anniversary of the film. Stills from Roti and Aurat are also printed on the FDC. For Saigal’s postage stamp, published on January 4, 1995, the FDC has three characters he played in films.

In the same year, Indian Post paid tribute to Prithvi Theatres, founded by Prithviraj Kapoor, on its 50th anniversary. Raj Kapoor was honoured by the postal department on December 14, 2001, making it probably the only instance of a father and son from Indian cinema being thus recognised.

  

In 2001, commemorative stamps were also issued to salute Sivaji Ganesan and V Shantaram.

A notable Perforated Miniature Sheet published by the postal department is dedicated to the ‘Golden Voices of Yesteryears’.

It has a set of stamps on Kishore Kumar (1929-87), Mukesh (1923-76), Mohammed Rafi (1920-80) and Hemant Kumar (1920-89). Each of the stamps has a portion of an LP record printed on it.

Among other leading lights of Indian cinema that have left their stamp on the country’s philatelic history are PL (Pu La) Deshpande, Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy, Gemini Ganesh, SS Vasan, Jyotiprasad Agarwala and AV Muniyappan. A Who's Who, literally!

(The stamps shown here are from the writer’s personal collection)