World Postal Day on Oct 09

Dear Comrades,

ALLAHABAD: In the bustling lanes of the Old City lives 57-year-old Gauhar Husain. At first instance Gauhar comes across as a modest man who earns his livelihood as a gardener in the Allahabad University. But that's not all about him. Gauhar has an envious collection of over 15 lakh stamps including some very rare ones.

And now, he is looking for a successor who could preserve and cherish his philately treasure.
Gauhar Husain, presently working as garden supervisor at AU, took to stamp collection at the age of seven years. It took the form of a passion when he came in contact with some foreign students while studying in class 10. After doing MSc agriculture, Gauhar joined senior scientists at the department of botany for DST projects. He later joined the university in 1989.

His treasure speaks volumes of his painstaking efforts. There is the 'dak' of early 20th century when horse 'dak' was used for sending letters in the British India. There are also stamps of the erstwhile royal states including Jaipur, Gwalior, Banaras, Devas, Travancore, Cochin, etc. Gauhar also has stamps on man's maiden flight in the space or landing on the moon along with 3D stamps from Bhutan to USSR, USA and Saudi Arabia.

The collection has stamps belonging to almost all the countries of the world, be it smaller once like Somalia and Fujeira or the powerful nations of Europe and America. He has maintained separate stamp bank for birds, animals, butterfly, sports and flowers off course, which is his second passion of Gauhar who was also the best NCC cadet in his youths.

Gauhar's collection has a large number of stamps from the countries associated with Mahatma Gandhi. These include England, Ireland, South Africa, Cuba, Germany etc. Some stamps from Republic Togolaise show Gandhi under the title 'grand leaders'. The collection also has two-dimensional stamps from Sanda Island and the plastic stamp issued by Bhutan.
Besides stamps, Gauhar also has the rare collection of errors postage material. "A 15 paise postcard with three stamping areas is among the rarest ones," says Gauhar.

But now he is worried about the philatelic treasure. His wife passed away a few months back and since the couple do not have children, there is none to inherit the prized legacy. He is therefore looking for a deserving individual to hand over the collection.

"My only dream is to participate in some international exhibition on stamps so that I can find a successor. My nephews and relatives neither understand philately nor have any interest in it," says Gauhar.

(A) World Postal Day is celebrated on October 9 to mark the anniversary of the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874 in the Swiss capital Berne. It was declared World Postal Day by the UPU Congress held in Tokyo in 1969.
(B) From the earliest times in history, "postal services" existed in the form of messengers who travelled large distances on foot or horseback. In the 1600s and 1700s, many countries set up national postage systems and entered into bilateral agreements for the exchange of mail between countries. By the late 1800s there was a large web of bilateral agreements that made the distribution of international mail complicated, non-transparent and inefficient.
(C) In 1863, Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General in the US organised a conference of representatives from 15 European and American countries. On September 15, 1874, Heinrich von Stephan, a senior postal official in the North German Confederation (an area that now forms parts of Germany, Poland and Russia), opened a conference in Berne, Switzerland, with delegates from 22 countries. On October 9, 1874, the delegates signed the Treaty of Berne and established the General Postal Union.

Rajiv Mani, TNN Oct 9, 2011, 01.49PM IST  Times of India