Chennai’s love for handwritten post cards goes places

G Prakash Raj, a third year manufacturing engineering student at Anna University’s College of Engineering, Guindy, and who initiated the meet in Chennai said he started Postcrossing four years ago after a friend from Russia introduced him to this hobby. 

Prakash says he received over 800 post cards from members in over 150 countries like Vanuatu, San Marino, USA, Germany, the Antarctica and Russia. He had earlier registered on “www.postcrossing.com” and other online Postcrossing forums to receive members’ addresses. “As I am interested in learning more about history and culture of various countries, this hobby makes me very happy,” he said. 

Pointing out that Postcrossing offers the element of surprise as the card could come from any person, from any part of the world, Anup Kumar Goyal says he is happy every time he receives a postcard from an unknown person. “This hobby also helps sustain the habit of letter writing among people. I have received over 200 postcards in the last 3 years,” he says. 

Tapas Kumar Das, a research scholar from IIT Madras, says he got know about Postcrossing from some students who had come to IIT Madras as part of an exchange programme. “I have a collection of postcards from Postcrossers in about 190 countries, including North Korea and Afghanistan through Postcrossing website and other such forums,” he added.

A person has to register on www.Postcrossing. com to get a unique ID. After registration, he would get postal addresses of five random Postcrossers from across the world. One can send a picture postcard with messages written on one side, to the addressee. Once the person receives the card he registers the delivery on the website, enabling the sender to know the mail has been received at the other end.