At a time when social media networks have taken over communication, a few people still find charm in sending postcards.
What’s fascinating is that they send the postcards to strangers in some corner of the world and receive one from some other corner. The idea of ‘Postcrossing’ is to exchange postcards to anyone in the world through the website www.postcrossing.com where the addresses of registered members are available.
On Sunday, the ‘Postcrossing community’ in Chennai held its meeting in the Chennai Metro Rail. They boarded at Nehru Park and alighted at the airport for a discussion.
G. Prakashraj, a 21-year-old engineering student of Anna University recollects how he chanced upon the initiative. “I found the website and started off in a small way. We meet at least twice or thrice a year. For a change, we decided to meet in the Metro today,” he said.
“Have you ever received a postcard from an underwater post office? I have. That’s how exciting it can get,” he says, recollecting about the postcard he got from Vanuatu, an island nation located 1,000 miles east of northern Australia.
Arun Kumar Narasimhan, a member of the group, says he was fascinated to get a postcard on steam engines all the way from Finland. “This encourages people of all ages to continue writing letters and sending postcards in this digital age.” It also brings in new friends. Recently, the Chennai group met its Mumbai counterpart.
Mr. Prakashraj is planning to visit Bhutan with his postcrossing friend. “That’s what life is all about. Meeting new people and gaining new experiences,” he says.
