Postman always rings twice

Wanted: Dead...and especially alive. No longer hip in a world of instant messaging, the US Postal Service (USPS) has a novel fightback plan. While commemorating deceased Immortals, American postage stamps will also fete living legends. USPS wants folks to suggest - via Facebook or Twitter! - whose face should grace the new stamps. Bill Clinton or Bill Gates? Jacko or J-Lo? Ugh, belches a US stamp shop owner. Instead of honouring dead presidents and patriots, stamps will now go gaga...over Lady Gaga!

We desis root for Paris Hilton instead, since she's still gush-ing about her recent India visit. Which makes us think: ima-gine how implementing USPS's idea here - through the world's widest post office network - will cheer our own globe-trotting netas and other VVIPs. Dead or alive, politicos stamp their presence in our lives anyway. Every galli and mohalla is named after them. Their statues straddle every road and park. Their hoardings and convoys crowd us out, from Jantar Mantar to Jhumritalaiyya. So, why can't they camp on our stamps, sealing their claim to postal fame?

                Netas can give a break to squabbling over prime ministerial posts, cabinet berths and post-retirement sinecures. Instead, they can have a stamp-ede over who adorns the highest priced stamps - or the lowest, in these pro-aam admi times. Yes, Bollywood, corporate and sports icons too will be paid tribute to. For them, whose stamp sells most will be a prestige issue. One as huge as whose item number sizzles best, whose house is taller than 27-storey Antilla and who earns more endorsing tooth powder...or Brand BCCI.

To get more stamps sold, a campaign could revive the lost art of letter-writing. With their image literally at stake, politi-cians will take up this (stamp) duty. We already know they put everything from tirades against teammates to outlandish demands in writing. Isn't leaked official correspondence making every RTI activist's day? Pranabda - who knows not how his PM-directed letters slip into wrong hands - can set trends here by sending explosive notes via reliable PO boxes. Mayawati can do the same with her speed-posts. She's been incessantly dropping letter bombs on the PM, demanding everything from quotas to better fertiliser supply in poll-bound UP.

Think of the welcome publicity India Post will get when, say, Modi sulks for not being BJP-backed in a contest for the first living face to launch a thousand stamps. Or when Maya stomps - stamps? - on UP officials for daring to prefer Rahul baba post-its. Or when activists go on fasts, demanding we produce as many Anna stamps as record-breaking Anna topis.

Hold it, some caution. In these graft-hit times, what if a living politico we pay postal homage to today lands up in Tihar Jail tomorrow? Well, it'll be worth writing home about...and think of all the stamps honouring potential jailbirds to choose from! So, let's send the PM a chitthi demanding that our postmasters emulate their US counterparts. Post-haste.

Courtesy: The Times of India, October 1, 2011