A medley of chirrups, hoots, squawks, caws, coos and trills greet me at the Indian Institute of World Culture in Basavanagudi, where ‘Let’s Go Birding’, a bird-themed stamp exhibition, is being held. Playing the birdcalls of around 139 birds on a loop is an attempt to make the viewing experience more immersive, explains exhibition’s curator Ramu M Srinivasa, as he leads me past a dizzying array of frames, containing bird-themed stamps, postcards and miniature sheets, all from his personal collection.
These include a sheet of Salim Ali-themed stamps issued on March 20, 1996 to commemorate the ornithologist’s birth centenary; a sepia-toned stamp bearing an image of a fossilised pteranodon issued by the now-defunct Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany); numerous stamps from all over the world depicting various species of penguins, raptors, owls, pheasants and waterfowl; a series of pigeonograms and even a hunting and fishing license issued by the United States Department of the Interior.
“There are 30,000 stamps on birds, which have been issued across the world, of which I have 25,000,” says Ramu, who has chosen to showcase around 18,000 stamps of those on this occasion. Of the 10,000-odd species of birds found in the world, “here, in this exhibition, you will see close to 2,300 different species.”
Some of the stamps on display
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
‘Let’s Go Birding’ is a tribute to the late Dr RG Sangoram, a retired professor of Chemistry at MES College in Malleswaram and a keen philatelist himself, who had inducted Ramu into the world of topical philately in the 1980s. “He inspired me to choose a particular theme and collect on that. He would always say that when you are collecting, you should have focus, otherwise it becomes too generalised,” he says, recalling the professor’s advice
Being a science teacher himself, Dr Sangoram encouraged science-themed collections, says Ramu, who currently has around 1 lakh stamps, 50,000 of which revolve around specific themes such as butterflies, scientists and geology.
“Initially, I started with birds, butterflies and crawling creatures and later on started developing those collections,” he says, pointing out that he has spent nearly 40 years, since the age of 12, collecting stamps. The bird stamp collection, his largest, was also influenced by his own interest in birding. “I had a childhood friend who used to take me wherever he would go trekking or birdwatching. He showed me the path, and I continued it,” he says.
Some of the stamps on display
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
In spite of having an impressive stamp collection, putting together an exhibition of nearly 18,000 stamps was no easy task for the philatelist. “It was teamwork,” says Ramu, who credits his friends Naveein OC and Jagannath Mani for helping him pull off this mammoth task. “Without them I wouldn’t have been able to work,” he says, adding that the exhibition has been developed keeping in mind the guidelines of competitive philately exhibits. “It requires a lot of brainstorming and correlating visual images with a storyline, which, in turn, needs to have a flow.”
The first few frames of the 60-odd panels focus on more general themes related to birds, such as origin, anatomy, communication, habits, migration, human-bird relationship and conservation, while the remaining are dedicated to bird taxonomy. “I have covered around 27 orders,” he says.
Stamps on display
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Since every stamp has at least three attributes: the name of the country issuing it, the denomination and the image, it is an excellent tool for cognitive learning, says Ramu, who believes that once you’re bitten by the stamp bug, “you feel like digging up more.”
He hopes that more children come to this exhibition because stamps can also help them learn more about the world around us. “An average birder would have seen 200 to 250 species of birds, and if they travelled across India, maybe a maximum of 500. But here, you’ll be able to see close to 2,300 species of birds, a treat for the eyes.”
‘Let’s Go Birding’ is on at the Indian Institute of World Culture in Basavanagudi till December 25
Published – December 10, 2025 05:02 pm IST