Great stories by Great authors….

 

The U.S. Postal Service will honor the 150th anniversary of the birth of O. Henry with a 2012 Forever stamp. The design of the stamp is beautiful. Here I just wish to share his most famous story “The Gift of Magi” and  famous  Hindi film ‘Raincoat’ based on this story……The great story by great author….This is all in this Post….Have a Nice Time !

O. Henry is the pen name of writer William S. Porter, 1862-1910. The O. Henry drawing is based on a photograph of the author as a young man. The background image is the elevated rail in New York City, where many of O. Henry's stories were set. O. Henry wrote nearly 300 stories, including "The Gift of the Magi," "The Ransom of Red Chief" and "The Cop and the Anthem." O. Henry has an annual anthology named after him, The O. Henry Prize Stories. The O. Henry stamp will be the 28th stamp in the Literary Arts series by USPS.

A postage stamp on O Henry was also issued by then USSR in 1962,

 O. Henry (1862-1910) was a prolific American short-story writer, a master of surprise endings, who wrote about the life of ordinary people in New York City. A twist of plot, which turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance, is typical of O. Henry's stories. O. Henry’s real name was William Sydney Porter and he was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on September 11, 1862. At age of 20 (1882) he moved to Texas, where he had various jobs.

In 1894 while working for First National Bank in Austin, Porter was accused of stealing $4000. He went to prison in Columbus, Ohio for 3 years eventually.While in prison Porter first started to write short stories and it’s believed that he has found his writer’s pseudonym there. After Porter was released from the prison in 1901, he changed his name to O. Henry and moved to New York in 1902.From December 1903 to January 1906 o. Henry wrote a story a week for the New York World magazine, and published several short stories in other magazines.O. Henry’s short stories are famous for their surprise endings and humor.O. Henry's wrote such classic short stories as The Ransom of Red Chief, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”.In his last years O. Henry had financial and health problems.  O. Henry died on June 5, 1910 in New York City. 

"The Gift of the Magi" is a popular Christmas story about love and sacrifice. The work is one of the most famous stories by O. Henry.

"The Gift of the Magi" is a short story written by O. Henry , about a young married couple and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money. As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been a popular one for adaptation, especially for presentation during the Christmas season.

 

Young married couple Della and James "Jim" Dillingham Young are very much in love with each other but can barely afford their one-room apartment due to their very bad economic situation. For Christmas, Della decides to buy Jim a chain for his prized pocket watch given to him by his father's father. To raise the funds, she has her long, beautiful hair cut off and sold to make a wig. Meanwhile, Jim decides to sell his watch to buy Della a beautiful set of combs made out of tortoiseshell and jewels for her lovely, knee-length brown hair. Although each is disappointed to find the gift they chose rendered useless, each is pleased with the gift that they received, because it represents their love for one another.

Read full orignial story….

Raincoat is a 2004 Hindi film directed by Rituparno Ghosh, and starring Ajay Devgan and Aishwarya Rai. It tells the story of two lovers, separated by destiny, who meet again one day. This encounter allows each to realize the truth about the lives they are living. It is an adaptation of the short story The Gift of the Magi (1906) by O Henry .

The story begins with unemployed Manu (Ajay Devgan), from Bhagalpur in search of money to finance his new business as he has lost his earlier job at a jute mill. On his quest, he visits Neeru (Aishwarya Rai) in Calcutta, to whom he was engaged six years ago. During the rainy evening, the couple reminisce about their former love and how each ended up in their current situation.

Neeru pretends to lead a happy and prosperous life. She gestures to her former lover during various instances, particularly when the door bell rings and she persuades Manu not to open the door. They go on talking about their past and present with multiple flashbacks.

The raincoat comes to play when Neeru wears it to fetch some food. The landlord speaks of the real situation of the household, and prompts Manu to give his borrowed money as rent for the house. Manu leaves a letter under the bed sheet explaining things. When Neeru returns he does not say anything about his encounter with her landlord. After some time Manu leaves. Later, when he puts his hand inside the pocket of his raincoat, he finds a pair of gold bangles that belonged to Neeru, along with a letter saying that she had a lot of money and he should have told her about his financial situation. She had actually read a letter that was inside the raincoat that informed her about Manu's condition.

RAINCOAT: An excellent touching movie to heart with its most simplicity based on O Henry’ s story “ The Gift of Magi”

Hong Kong Chinese Idioms and Their Stories on stamps…

 

Date of Issue : 28 June 2011

Hi ! Here is a very beautiful set of stamps issued by Hong Kong Post featuring moral stories for all. The stamps have a message for every age group. It is  a wonderful theme on stamps.Each stamp depicts an idiom and a story related with it having a life message for all. The stamps are very nice I like them very much !!

Chinese idioms are set phrases which have evolved over thousands of years of use. Hong Kong Post’s first issue of Chinese idioms stamps was received eagerly by philately enthusiasts and the general public in 2006. The second set is now released in the form of Children Stamps, intending to stimulate the younger generation’s interest in Chinese culture and philately with colourful and lively pictures on five idioms and their stories.

Chinese idioms are succinct and expressive, vivid and figurative. Often originating from fables, literature and historical facts or personages, their stories are full of references and the wisdom of the ages.

The set of stamps is themed on five Chinese idioms.

$1.40 - Mutual help in hard times
This idiom originates from Zhuangzi (369 - 286 BC), the famous Daoist philosopher born in ancient China. It literally means that when the spring water dries up, the fishes stranded on land moisten each other with their saliva. The idiom is now used to describe people coming to each other’s assistance during difficult times.

$1.80 - Water drops wear away rocks
According to the observation of a scholar of the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD), water drops, small and soft as they may be, can hollow out hard rock over time. The idiom carries the message that perseverance and determination breed success.

$2.40 - Practice makes perfect
Dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 AD) , this idiom refers to the repetitive heating and hammering during the iron forging process, alluding to the polishing of a piece of writing in the most meticulous manner in the quest for perfection. It is also used to describe one’s experience of numerous trials and challenges.

$3 - Save to give
This idiom originates from an article in the Tang Dynasty. It advises that governing officials should economise on resources so that more can be given back to the people for a better life.

$5 - As deft as a master butcher
Zhuangzi described in this story how a butcher used his superb skills to cut up an ox effortlessly for Lord Wenhui. It illustrates the fact that with constant practice and thorough knowledge, one can deal with everything with ease.

Colour stickers associated with the souvenir sheet can be matched with monochrome shapes on the stamps to complete the five stories. The game enhances the meaning behind the stories for children, as well as making stamp collecting fun!

Club News

Demand of a Philatelic Bureau by philatelists of Gorakhpur….

Press clipping

Published in  Amar Ujala

New themes for US 2012 stamps….

 

 

US Postal Service will issue stamps on Dance, Literature and Nature in 2012.  Three new U.S. stamp subjects were unveiled by the U.S. Postal Service in early August. These are: Innovative Choreographers, O. Henry and Earthscapes.

In 2012, USPS will pay tribute to Isadora Duncan, Jose Limon, Katherine Dunham, and Bob Fosse. Designed to look like posters advertising a performance, the stamp art captures the luminosity and mystery of a live dance performance.

USPS will also commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of O. Henry with a stamp in its Literary Arts series. The short stories of O. Henry are beloved for their irony and skillful unfolding of plot; often, they end with a surprise twist. This prolific author wrote nearly 300 tales, most in the final eight years of his life. By the time of his death, he was the most widely read storyteller in America and was internationally admired.

Finally, the Earthscapes issuance offers stamp customers an opportunity to see the world in a new way. The stamp pane presents examples of three categories of earthscapes: natural, agricultural, and urban. The photographs were all created high above the planet's surface, either snapped by "eyes in the sky" - satellites orbiting the Earth - or carefully composed by photographers in aircraft.

Club News

From our Readers…

Mr Sanjiv Jain of Dehradun  has prepared Maxim Cards on recent stamps issued on Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Note :  For these  Max cards New Delhi is the most appropriate place for cancellation.

New Stamp from India

 

 

Date of Issue : 1 August 2011

 

Today India Post  issued  a  commemorative postage stamp on Shri  K.M.Mathew .

K. M. Mathew (January 2, 1917 – August 1, 2010) was a former Editor-in-chief of leading Malayalam daily Malayala Manorama.He joined the newspaper as Managing Editor in 1954 and went on to become Editor in chief in 1973.

Mathew launched many publications such as the women’s magazine Vanitha in Malayalam and Hindi, the English magazine The Week, the farmer’s magazine Karshakasree, children’s magazines Balarama, Amar Chitra Katha and Kalikudukka in Malayalam and Magic Pot in English and encyclopedic Manorama Yearbook in Malayalam, English, Hindi, Tamil and Bengali.

In 1998 he received Padma Bhushan. He has received many other awards including Foundation of Freedom of Information Award (1991), National Citizen’s award (1992), Ramakrishna Jay Dayal award (1995), Durga Prasad Chaudhary award (1996) and B D Goenka Award (1996).

Image source: Mansoor B. Mangalore

 

Special Covers

Rajasthan

 

 

Rajpex :  11.11.81

 

 

Rajpex : 12 .11. 81

 

Rajpex :13. 1. 81

: Ashwani Dubey, Gorakhpur

Philatelic Tributes to Munshi Prem Chand and Mohd Rafi ..

 

 

Today is Birth anniversary of Munshi Prem Chand, greatest writer of  Hindi – Urdu literature and Death anniversary of Mohd Rafi, finest singer Indian Cinema . Philatelic Tributes to great legends of Literature and Music.

Munshi Premchand  (July 31, 1880 – October 8, 1936) was a famous writer of modern Hindi-Urdu literature. He is generally recognized in India as the foremost Hindi-Urdu writer of the early twentieth century. He wrote novels, stories and dramas. He is known as "Upanyas Samrat" which means a great emperor among novel writers.

His real name was Dhanpat Rai but he is famous with his pen name of Premchand or Munshi Premchand. He was born in Pandepur , a village near Banaras (now Varanasi). His early education was in a madarasa under a Maulavi, where he learnt Urdu. In 1919, while he was a teacher at Gorakhpur, he passed his B.A., with English, Persian and History.

He pioneered the new art form - fiction with a social purpose. He wrote of the life around him and made his readers aware of the problems of the urban middle-class and the country's villages and their problems. He supplemented Gandhiji's work in the political and social fields by adopting his revolutionary ideas as themes for his literary writings. Premchand was a prolific writer.

Premchand wrote about three hundred short stories and fourteen novels, as well as many essays and letters, plays and translations. Many of Premchand's stories have themselves been translated into English and Russian.

Godaan (The Gift of a Cow), his last novel, is considered one of the finest Hindi novels. The protagonist, Hori, a poor peasant, desperately longs for a cow, a symbol of wealth and prestige in rural India. The story depicts the human beings' deep-rooted beliefs, and their ability to survive and uphold these beliefs despite great misery

In Kafan (Shroud), a poor man collects money for the funeral rites of his dead wife, but spends it on food and drink.

Premchand died in 1936 and has since been studied both in India and abroad as one of the greatest writers of the century.Three of his novels have been made into films.

Mohammed Rafi

 

Philatelic Tribute to the Legendary Indian Playback Singer, Mohammed Rafi  whose rich melodious voice,  attract the older and the newer generations day by day.

Mohd Rafi was one  the most versatile singers of Hindi Cinema. He was born at Kotla Sultan Singh, a village near Amritsar in Punjab. Rafi, whose nickname was Pheeko, started singing by imitating chants of a fakir in his village. . Rafi learnt classical music from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwanlal Matto and Firoze Nizami.

Rafi's first public performance came at the age of 13, when he was allowed to sing at a concert in Lahore featuring K. L. Saigal. In 1941, Rafi, under Shyam Sunder, made his debut in Lahore as a playback singer in the duet "Soniye nee, Heeriye nee" with Zeenat Begum in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch (the film was released in 1944). In that same year, Rafi was invited by All India Radio Lahore station to sing for them. He made his professional debut in the Shyam Sunder-directed 1941 film Gul Baloch and the Bombay film, Gaon Ki Gauri, the following year.

Rafi also did brief roles in movies like Laila-Majnu (1945) and Jugnu. In Laila-Majnu, he was seen singing ‘tera jalwa’ as a part of the chorus.In a career spanning about 40 years, Rafi sang over 26,000 film songs. His songs ranged from classical numbers to patriotic songs, sad lamentations to highly romantic numbers, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans, and from slow melancholic tunes to fast and melodious fun filled songs. He sang in many Indian languages.

 

More stamps on Tarzan..

 

Hi ! Here are some more stamps, miniature sheet and Cover on Tarzan. After  publication of my last Post about Tarzan Stamp by USPS, I received information from Dr Eli Moallem of Israel about some more stamps on Tarzan issued by other postal administrations. The stamps are just wonderful. Thanks to Eli for sharing these nice stamps here  on my Blog ! Well Tarzan is a name which fascinates everyone, especially during school days through comics or films….Just enjoy the stamps and have a Nice Time !

 

 

Stamp on Tarzan to be issued by USPS..

 

The United States Postal Service will issue a postage stamp on world famous Cartoon Character Tarzan, the ape man in 2012. The design of the stamp has already been finalized. The stamp will become hot favorite of stamp collectors  all over the world.

Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later returns to civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan first appeared in the novel Tarzan of the Apes (magazine publication 1912, book publication 1914), and then in twenty-five sequels, three authorized books by other authors, and innumerable works in other media.

 

The U.S. Postal Service joins with fans around the world in celebrating the centennial of a cultural phenomenon.

This stamp shows Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ most famous literary creation, clinging to a tree by a vine in his left hand and wielding a weapon in his right. Burroughs appears in profile in the background. Hulbert Burroughs, the author’s son, took the 1934 photograph that served as the basis for the stamp portrait of Burroughs. The depiction of Tarzan is artist Sterling Hundley’s own interpretation of the character.

In the past century, Burroughs’ Tarzan stories have been published in magazines, syndicated in newspapers, and republished in more than 24 books, while the Tarzan character has grown into a phenomenon beyond the printed word. In 1918, the silent film Tarzan of the Apes became the first of more than 50 Tarzan movies. Tarzan also became the subject of a comic strip beginning in 1929, radio series in the 1930s and the 1950s, and several television series in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Today, Tarzan is a ubiquitous part of American popular culture.

Burroughs is also remembered for writing historical fiction and several popular series of science fiction tales, especially the 11 books in his famous “John Carter of Mars” series. A new film adaptation of Burroughs’ Mars series is scheduled for release in 2012.

The Tarzan character

Tarzan is the son of a British Lord and Lady who were marooned on the West coast of Africa by mutineers. When Tarzan was a year old, his mother died of natural causes, and his father was killed by Kerchak, leader of the ape tribe into which Tarzan was adopted. Tarzan's tribe of apes is known as the Mangani, Great Apes of a species unknown to science. Kala is his ape mother. Tarzan (White-skin) is his ape name; his English name is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke In fact, Burroughs's narrator in Tarzan of the Apes, describes both Clayton and Greystoke as fictitious names – implying that, within the fictional world that Tarzan inhabits, he may have a different real name.

As a young adult, Tarzan meets a young American woman, Jane Porter, who along with her father and others of their party is marooned at exactly the same spot on the African coast where Tarzan's parents were twenty years earlier. When she returns to America, he leaves the jungle in search of her, his one true love. In later books, Tarzan and Jane marry and he lives with her for a time in England. They have one son, Jack, who takes the ape name Korak ("the Killer"). Tarzan is contemptuous of the hypocrisy of civilization, and he and Jane return to Africa, making their home on an extensive estate that becomes a base for Tarzan's later adventures.

In Tarzan, Burroughs created an extreme example of a hero figure largely unalloyed with character flaws or faults. He is described as being Caucasian, extremely athletic, tall, handsome, and tanned, with grey eyes and black hair. Emotionally, he is courageous, loyal and steadfast. He is intelligent and learns new languages easily. He is presented as behaving ethically in most situations, except when seeking vengeance under the motivation of grief, as when his ape mother Kala is killed in Tarzan of the Apes, or when he believes Jane has been murdered in Tarzan the Untamed. He is deeply in love with his wife and totally devoted to her; in numerous situations where other women express their attraction to him, Tarzan politely but firmly declines their attentions. When presented with a situation where a weaker individual or party is being preyed upon by a stronger foe, Tarzan invariably takes the side of the weaker party. In dealing with other men Tarzan is firm and forceful. With male friends he is reserved but deeply loyal and generous. As a host, he is likewise generous and gracious. As a leader, he commands devoted loyalty.

In keeping with these noble characteristics, Tarzan's philosophy embraces an extreme form of "return to nature". Although he is able to pass within society as a civilized individual, he prefers to "strip off the thin veneer of civilization", as Burroughs often puts it. His preferred dress is a knife and a loincloth of animal hide, his preferred abode is any convenient tree branch when he desires to sleep, and his favored food is raw meat, killed by himself; even better if he is able to bury it a week so that putrefaction has had a chance to tenderize it a bit.

Read More…

Great Writers - Ernest Hemingway..

 

Vietnam Post  has issued a stamp on 2nd March 2011, commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the death of Ernest Hemingway, one of the greatest authors of the world. The  design of the stamp is so beautiful with Hemingway’s two great books “ Farewell to Arms” and  “The Old Man and The Sea” with his autograph and profile. The design of the FDC is very nice with image of his famous book and Nobel Prize he received for the book. Vietnam Post also issued a beautiful Max card with this issue.

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899 - 1961) was an American novelist, a short story writer and a journalist. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 with his novel “The Old Man and the Sea” and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. The Old Man and the Sea is a novel  written in 1951 in Cuba and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon Santiago, an aging fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

Read More…

Hemingway is the second American (after Norman Morrison, 1965) and the third foreign writer (after Maxim Gorky of Russia, 1968 and Rabindranath Tagore of India, 1982) featured on Vietnamese stamps.

Maxim Card

 

The Old Man and the Sea tells an epic battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a giant marlin. It opens by explaining that the fisherman, who is named Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching a fish. He is so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling back his fishing gear, getting him food and discussing American baseball and his favorite player Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end.

Thus on the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sets out alone, taking his skiff far onto the Gulf. He sets his lines and, by noon of the first day, a big fish that he is sure is a marlin takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. Two days and two nights pass in this manner, during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. Though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. He also determines that because of the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin.

On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he has left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, ending the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish. Santiago straps the marlin to the side of his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed.

While Santiago continues his journey back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water. The first, a great macho shark, Santiago kills with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; in total, five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But the sharks keep coming, and by nightfall the sharks have almost devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving a skeleton consisting mostly of its backbone, its tail and its head. Finally reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, Santiago struggles on the way to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and falls into a deep sleep.

A group of fishermen gather the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be 18 feet (5.5 m) from nose to tail. Tourists at the nearby café mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of his youth—of lions on an African beach.

Club News

Founder member of Karnataka Philatelic Society passed away…

Mr C N Narasimha Murthy a founder member of the Karnataka Philatelic Society and Senior Philatelist from Bangalore passed away  on 27th June 2011. He was a renowned philatelist and  had worked on various posts of the Karnataka Philatelic Society .

May his Soul rest in peace.  Our deepest Condolences to his family members.

-Jagannath Mani
www.olympicgamesphilately.blogspot.com