India celebrated 125 years of a police system born after 1857
A 1986 stamp counts 125 years of Indian policing back to 1861 — the colonial law, written in the wake of 1857, that independent India never stopped using.
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The Owl That Fought Sixteen Years to Stay on the Crest
When India’s premier staff college kept the owl it inherited from a British crest, Army Headquarters rejected it as ill-omened and asked for a falcon. The bird won anyway – but it took sixteen years.
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What Three Children’s Day Stamps Reveal Together
Three years running, India Post handed a stamp to a child. Each time the child painted something the occasion never asked for.
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The Girl on the Rock Has a Name. The 1986 Children’s Day Stamp Does Not Print It.
Two ropes cross this stamp and neither is tied to anything. The catalogue calls the picture “Girl Rock Climber.” The stamp never says so.
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Once a Year an Indian Stamp Is Designed by a Child. In 1983 the Child Painted an Adult.
Once a year India hands a stamp over to a child. In 1983 the child filled it with a grown-up, and put the only child in the picture at half her height.
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The 1984 Children’s Day Stamp With No Children On It
India Post handed a schoolchild a national stamp and asked for Children’s Day. He painted a tree full of birds, a herdsman, and not a single child.
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India’s First Heroine Wasn’t a Woman. The Stamp Never Says So.
A platinum-jubilee stamp honors the birth of Indian cinema — but the film it pictures couldn’t find a single woman willing to appear in it.
