Pallavi with her winner?s certificate at school on Monday. Picture by Sudeshna Banerjee

This Children?s Day, a city girl has stamped her name on philatelic fame. A sketch by Pallavi Majumder, a Class VIII student of Bidya Bharati Girls? High School, New Alipore, was released in the form of a special stamp in Delhi on Monday. Eight lakh copies of it will now spread to post offices across the nation.

?Every year on November 14, a stamp design contest is held across the country. The winning entry is selected for the Children?s Day stamp the year after. It is a huge honour for the child, as designs for other stamps go through processes of artistic creation and recreation but in this case, the child?s imagination gets directly transferred to print,? explained Jashobanta Panda, postmaster-general, south Bengal region.

Panda went over to Pallavi?s school on Monday morning to felicitate her. An exhibition of her paintings was put up in the hall. The bespectacled teenager has never missed full marks in the drawing test.

?Last year, I sat for the contest at the Sarat Bose Road post office,? she recalled. The theme was celebrations. ?I chose Durga puja immersion, as I wanted the rest of the country to know about our greatest festival,? said the girl who picked up the drawing pencil at the age of three.

The picture was chosen as the top entry from the local level and sent for contention at the zonal. On being selected the best among the neighbouring states as well, it was despatched to Delhi. There too, Pallavi?s watercolour scored over the runners-up from Bangalore, Dibrugarh and Jamshedpur.

According to secretary of the Indian Philatelic Traders Association Kalyan Negal, the children?s day stamp was born in the late-1950s. Then images of children or even child-related social issues (like immunization) were used on the stamp. The stamp design contest started in 1973 and has continued almost without a break except for Jawaharlal Nehru?s centenary years (1988-89) when portraits of India?s first Prime Minister whose birthday is celebrated as children?s day were put on the stamps. “Children’s Day stamps are extremely popular,” Negal points out.

On the day she became part of philatelic history, Pallavi had her feet firmly on the ground.

The stamp Pallavi designed

Other than numerous state prizes, she has already got international recognition — a medal at the Asian Children’s Art Contest, Osaka, in 2002, and then mementoes from the International Children’s Art Exhibition of the Czech Republic in 2002 and 2003 and the International Youth Art Exhibition in Bulgaria in 2004.

“I owe it all to my father,” she smiled.

Father Subrata Majumdar, a Calcutta Municipal Corporation engineer, had been dragged out of Government Art College classes by family pressure. “I want her to pursue her dream,” he beamed.

The teachers looked just as radiant. “Now, the others will be inspired by Pallavi’s example,” said headmistress Sharmistha Banerjee.

Pallavi’s race is far from run. In December, she heads for Delhi, having been shortlisted for the Balshri Award in the creative arts category.