Mother's Day..... !

Mother's Day - 10 May 2009

Hi ! It's 10th May, the day which is celebrated in many parts of the world as a speical day for Mothers. Mother's Day is celebrated in most of the countries on 2nd Sunday of May. So 10th May is being celebrated as Mother's Day in many parts of the world . Mother's Day is celebrated on different days throughout the world. The extent of the celebrations varies greatly. Turkish Post (PTT) has released four special stamps for Mother's Day, celebrating the importance of Mothers and the relationship with their children. The stamps are so beautiful and full colors to suit this day. So this is a special day for all Moms of the world and this post is dedicated to great mother ! The practice of celebrating the Mother is not alien to India.But the more personal festival of 'Mother's Day' has also come to become a part of our culture in new generation now. As the people are getting quite busy in their professional and personal life, the Mother's Day Cards have become the easy way of expressing love and rememberence for Mother !.. But personally I feel that all days are speical for mother. It's always nice to love and remember Mom ! I am also giving here some special philatelic items for today's special Post. This is all for Today !....Till Next Post.....Have a Nice Time !

Happy Mother's Day !

A Celebration In Honour Of All Mothers

MOTHER .....

M... is for the million things she gave me,

O... means only that she's growing old,

T... is for the tears she shed to save me,

H... is for her heart of purest gold;

E... is for her eyes, with love-light shining,

R... means right, and right she'll always

The First Mother's Day
The second Sunday in May is observed as Mother's Day in most countries of the world. But it was not always so. Not very long ago, a festival called 'Mothering Sunday' or 'Mid-Lent Sunday' was celebrated in England on the fourth Sunday in Lent. The celebrations were surprisingly similar to the modern way of celebrating Mother's Day.

The First Mother's Day, as we know it now days, was observed on May 10, 1908, in a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The celebrations involved a church service in honour of Mrs. Anna Reese Jarvis, mother of Anna Jarvis.Four years later, the Mother's Day International Association was created, on December 12, 1912, to spread the concept and practice of observing Mother's Day. The very next year, in May 1913, the House of Representatives of the US government adopted a resolution requesting the President, his Cabinet, members of Congress, and all officials of the federal government to wear a white carnation on Mother's Day. And finally, on May 8, 1914, the Congress passed a Joint Resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

Significance Of Carnations
When the first Mother's Day was observed at the request of Anna Jarvis in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 10, 1908, carnations were supplied at the church service. This was because carnations were her mother's favourite flowers.Thereafter, carnations have come to be associated with Mother's Day. White carnations are supposed to represented purity and love. Now it has become a tradition to regard red carnations as a symbol of a living mother; white carnations on the other hand are offered if one's mother has died.

Special philatelic items on Mother's Day

Courtesy - Dr Satyendra Kumar Agarwal

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Nice Covers from Ahmedabad and Gorakhpur.....

Hi ! Here are some nice covers which I recently received from Ahmedabad and Gorakhpur. The first shown above sent by our distinguished member Mr. Shrikant Parikh from Ahmedabad. It bears a permanent cancellation of famous Sidi Saiyyad Mosque. It's a carving in stone at Sidi Saiyed Mosque, Lal Darwaja, Ahmedabad. It is a famous religious tourist place of Ahmedabad. Every tourist arriving Ahmedabad visits this mosque. There are two covers. The other one shown below imperforate stamp obtained from miniature sheet. The other special cover received from Gorakhpur sent by Mr. Ashwini Dubey which was issued on Nature Cure Hospital Gorakhpur. Our Sincere thanks to Mr Ashwini Dubey and Mr Shrikant Parikh for these nice covers.

Architectural Delight -Sidi Saiyad's Window

Cancellation with normal Stamp

Cancellation with Imperforate stamp ( Obtained from Miniature Sheet)

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New Stamps from ........ and A Controversy on Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Stamps...

Monarch Caterpillar - 22 April 2009

Hi ! Here are some nice recent issues from Canada, Malta and Czech Republic and controversial Sri Sri Ravi Shankar stamps.But the stamp that attrcted me most is the lovely cute caterpillar called 'Monach Caterpillar' which appears on recent definitive stamp by Canada Post. The color is so bright and fascinating giving a look of a commemorative postage stamp.Normally definitive stamps are not so bright and attactive at least, issued by India Post. The other stamps are on Euro and Railway. In the second part of the post, some stamps that I found on a blog related with India's renowned Guru and & Philosopher Sri Sri Ravi Shankar that are claimed to be issued by Netherlands. But this seems to be very controversial as similar controversy arose earlier about popular Bhojpuri Singer Manoj Tiwari's stamp which was said to be issued by Netherlands . So this post is somewhat related with the topic of discussion too...Our Blogger friend Mansoor B. also writes about it in his Blog. Please also go through it. I am giving below some links about related with these controversial postage stamps. Our thanks to Mr. Prashant Pandya for today's Post !....This is all for today !......Till Next Post .....Have a Nice Time. !....


Cute Caterpillar on Canadian Stamp
On 22 April 2009 Canada Post issued a stamp honouring one of Canadian gardeners’ and farmers’ tiniest friends: the humble, yet hungry, Monarch Caterpillar.The 2-cent stamp is the newest issue in Canada Post’s low-value definitive series that pays tribute to the beneficial insects that roam Canada’s gardens and marshes. The monarch caterpillar’s favourite food is the milkweed, the bane of Canadian gardeners. The black-and-white caterpillar on the stamp slinking along a green milkweed leaf. The First Day Cover design of the stamp shows the caterpillar’s final manifestation as the glorious black-and-orange monarch butterfly. Positioning the butterfly on the front of the Official First Day Cover and the chrysalis on the back highlights the monarch’s spectacular lifecycle. The design shows great skill of the designer of the cover.

Date of Issue - 30 April 2009

New Stamp on Euro
The 10th Anniversary of the euro is being celebrated this year. Ths stamps have been issued by several administrations to mark the 10th anniversary. I have written about some of them in my earlier posts. Here is the latest one issued by Malta on 30th of April 2009.The stamp reproduces a replica image of the new 2-euro coin, issued in January 2009 which celebrates ten years of economic and monetary union (EMU). The design, which symbolises the euro as the latest step in the long history of European economic integration. This beautiful stamp is printed on Maltese Crosses watermarked paper .

Date of Issue - 22 April 2009

New stamp on Railways
On 22 April 2009 Czech Rapublic issued a stamp on 150th Anniversary of the former Pardubice - Liberec South - North German Junction Line. The first train arrived at Liberec on May 1, 1859. The Pardubice-Liberec line is the third oldest railway line in Bohemia.The Pardubice-Liberec line connected the industrial Northern Bohemia to Vienna and then passed the Austrian-German frontier on the Liberec-Žitava line. Turning to the North-Eastern Bohemia it changed the main direction not only because of coal but also for strategic military reasons. The 160 km long line is the first Czech railway in a demanding low mountain relief.

Fake or Real ???

http://vishwasalka.blogspot.com/2009/05/postage-stamps-in-honour-of-sri-sri.html

Reality or Controversy ?????

Please see more links related with these issues....

http://www.zeenews.com/news529070.html

http://sixtyfeet.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/05/dutch-honour-for-sri-sri-ravi-shankar.htm

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/holland-issues-postage-stamps-in-honour-of-sri-sri_100188203.html

http://mbstamps.blogspot.com/2009/05/stamps-on-sri-sri-ravi-shanker.html

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Dutch+honour+for+Sri+Sri+Ravi+Shankar&artid=NQPjheAMglE=&SectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&MainSectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&SEO=TNT+Post,+Sri+Ravi+Shankar,+IAHV&SectionName=UOaHCPTTmuP3XGzZRCAUTQ==

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Poems by Tagore.....

Hi ! I received two nice comments for Tagore's Post. On the occasion of Great Poet's Birth Anniversary, I am giving here some more poems from his famous book 'Gitanjali' that won Nobe Prize for Literature. I am also showing here a special cover, released in 1987 at calcutta to commemorate 125 years of his birth. This beautiful cover was designed by renowned philatelist and artist of India, Shri Dipok Dey.

Lamp of Love
Light, oh where is the light?
Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!
There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame---is such thy fate, my heart?
Ah, death were better by far for thee!
Misery knocks at thy door,
and her message is that thy lord is wakeful,
and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the darkness of night.
The sky is overcast with clouds and the rain is ceaseless.
I know not what this is that stirs in me---I know not its meaning.
A moment's flash of lightning drags down a deeper gloom on my sight,
and my heart gropes for the path to where the music of the night calls me.
Light, oh where is the light!
Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!
It thunders and the wind rushes screaming through the void.
The night is black as a black stone.
Let not the hours pass by in the dark.
Kindle the lamp of love with thy life.

Song Unsung
The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.
The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set;
only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.
The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by.
I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice;
only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.
The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor;
but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my house.
I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is not yet.

Patience
If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it.
I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil
and its head bent low with patience.
The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish,
and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky.
Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests,
and thy melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves.


Boat
I must launch out my boat.
The languid hours pass by on the
shore---Alas for me!
The spring has done its flowering and taken leave.
And now with the burden of faded futile flowers I wait and linger.
The waves have become clamorous, and upon the bank in the shady lane
the yellow leaves flutter and fall.
What emptiness do you gaze upon!
Do you not feel a thrill passing through the air
with the notes of the far-away song
floating from the other shore?

Sleep
In the night of weariness
let me give myself up to sleep without struggle,
resting my trust upon thee.
Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship.
It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day
to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening.

--Geetanjali - "Song Offerings" (translation from Bengali)

Read more poems by Tagore - http://www.schoolofwisdom.com/gitanjali.html

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Rabindranath Tagore .....

7th May - Birth Anniversary of Taogre

Hi ! It's 7th May and it is the Birth Anniversary of great Indian poet,novelist and artist Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. He became the Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India. Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India's spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution. Today's Post is a Philatelic tribute to India's greatest poet of all time. Many Postal adminitrations have issued postage stamps in his honour. I am giving here some of them as a philatelic tribute to this great Indian Personality. This is all for today !.....Till Next Post ....Have a Great Time !

Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) also known as Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath. He was a poet, visual artist, playwright, novelist, educationist, social reformer, nationalist, business-manager and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in LiteratureHe was born in Calcutta, into a wealthy Brahmin family. After a brief stay in England (1878) to attempt to study law, he returned to India, and instead pursued a career as a writer, playwright, songwriter, poet, philosopher and educator. During the first 51 years of his life he achieved some success in the Calcutta where he was born and raised with his many stories, songs and plays.

Tagore wrote novels, short stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays on political and personal topics. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are among his best-known works. His verse, short stories, and novels, which often exhibited rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation, received worldwide acclaim. Tagore was also a cultural reformer and polymath who modernised Bengali art by rejecting strictures binding it to classical Indian forms. Two songs from his canon are now the national anthems of Bangladesh and India: the Amar Shonar Bangla and the Jana Gana Mana respectively.Tagore was a prolific musician and painter, writing around 2,230 songs. They comprise rabindrasangit , now an integral part of Bengali culture. Tagore's music is inseparable from his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—became lyrics for his songs. At age sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France were held throughout Europe. Rabindranath Tagore died on August 7, 1941.

Rabindranth Tagore's Dakghar (Post Office)

The Post Office
Originally written in Bengali in 1912, The Post Office, rich in symbolism and allegory, is a play by Tagore about man's passionate cry for the faraway, for the call of the awakening in the world of spiritual freedom. Mahatma Gandhi was enraptured to witness the play in 1917 and W.B.Yeats thought it a masterpiece.

It's a scene from Drama 'Post Office' performed during recent district level exhibition Surpex 2008. The 4th Surat District Level Philatelic Exhibition, Supex 2008 was organized by Department of Post, Surat Postal Division of Gujarat Circle from 13th to 15th October 2008 at Surat. The drama titled “Post Office” based on Rabindranath Tagore’s play “Dak Ghar” was also performed on the occasion. India Post released a Miniature sheet on this famous play by Tagore on October 13, 2008 ( Shown above). Courtesy - Prashant Pandya

World Tributes to Tagore

Mind Without Fear
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.


Friend
Art thou abroad on this stormy night
on thy journey of love, my friend?
The sky groans like one in despair.
I have no sleep tonight.
Ever and again I open my door and look out on
the darkness, my friend!
I can see nothing before me.
I wonder where lies thy path!
By what dim shore of the ink-black river,
by what far edge of the frowning forest,
through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading
thy course to come to me, my friend?

Poems from Gitanjali "Song Offerings" by Rabindranath Tagore ( Translation from Bengali) for which he got Nobel Prize in Literature.

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Malta Post Commemorates International Astronomy Year....

Date of Issue - 9 May 2009

Hi ! Here is a the recent set of stamps to be issued by Malta Post on 9th May to commemorate International Year of Astronomy. It consits of two beautiful stamps depiting Galileo and telescope.The Euro 0.37 stamp features a portrait of Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) by Francesco Boschi and one of Galileo’s sketches of the moon set against a starry background including the constellation Orion. The stamp also commemorates the 40 year anniversary of the first manned lunar landing by featuring the Apollo 11 lunar module “Eagle”. The Euro 1.19 stamp shows the great telescope of William Lassell, set up in Malta between 1861 and 1865, against a background of stars showing Nebula M42, which Lassell himself observed on various occasions from Malta. These wonderful stamps can be included in both Space and Astronomy themes as well as Europa theme.This year the theme of Europa is also Astronomy . This is the latest update about Astronomy stamp issue........Till Next Post....Have a Nice Time !

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Recent Issues on Braille and Astronomy...

Date of Issue - 26 March 2009

Hi ! As we are aware that the Bicentenary of the Birth of Louis Braille is being celebrated this year. Many postal administrations have brought out stamps to commemorate Loui Braille. Here is the recent stamp issued by Kazakhstan on 26 March 2009. commemorating 200 years of the Birth of Louis Braille. Louis Braille is the favourite theme of the year 2009. Like Louis Braille, Astronomy is another popular theme of this year as 2009 is globally celbrated as International Year of Astronomy. Here are two nice issues from France and Kazakhstan. This is all in today's Post !......Till Next Post......Have a Nice Time !....

Recent Stamps on Astronomy

Kazakhstan - 3 April 2009

France - 4 May 2009

Finland - 6 May 2009

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