Father Tom John proudly displays his stamp collection on Diana. A picture by Prashant Mitra

Far from the maddening crowd, in a village called Nao Toli, a few kilometres from Chainpur in Gumla district, where there are no proper roads, telephones or electricity, Father Tom John?s prized possession keeps him connected with faraway countries and their famous personalities.

Any time he misses the world from which his parish is cut off, all he has to do is take out his stamp collection and turn through the pages. And he is connected at once with not just events, places and people, but to memories associated with each of them.

For it is a collection that he has painstakingly put together over the past 23 years, spending well over a lakh in the process, which is no small sacrifice, but definitely worth the pleasure it gives him.

Considering he has to take time out of his parish duties, which is itself not an easy job, given the condition of communication in the region, it has been a labour of love in which he takes great pride and joy.

To start with, it began as a hobby when Fr John was in Class X in 1977 in Kerala, from where he is originally from. While many children collect stamps, not many carry it on once they graduate into higher studies. But when Fr John travelled to Bhopal University for his masters in political science, his passion travelled with him.

The odds were sometimes against him, as finding the stamps one covets is not always easy. But from his impressive collection of 45,000 stamps, it?s obvious he never gave up.

What is striking about the collection is not just the numbers, but that it?s a thematic collection as well.

?I stay in a place where the daily newspaper is not available and I have to wait for weeks to buy a few when I go to town. I get that chance once a week, but without that I would not get to know much about the developments taking place outside the village. And it?s important for a philatelist to know which country came out with a new stamp or which are the new stamps available in India,? feels Fr John.

But where there?s a will, there is a way. ?It was difficult for me to continue with the hobby initially, but I worked a way out,? he said. He simply tapped his friends to send him what he wanted through the post.

In fact, he candidly points out that most of the stamps that he has collected are through his friends and relatives. It is because of the help received from them that he could build up a collection on 176 different themes, many further divided into sub-themes, without moving out to metropolitan cities.

?Stamp collection is not only one of the oldest hobbies, but also an expensive hobby. Earlier, I used to collect stamps on a random basis. Later, I realised that it is an educative hobby and shifted towards systematic collection,? Fr John says, explaining his growth in the field over the years.

If one thinks that it is exhausting for him after a day?s work to concentrate on his collection, Fr John has quite a different story to tell. ?Stamp collection as a hobby gives me energy. One can learn a lot about countries, places, events and people. A small piece of paper can give so much information, as each stamp has a history of its own. For me, collecting stamps is like being able to visit countries and meeting interesting people without the need for a visa or passport,? he said.

Though he values every stamp in his collection, the most expensive ones are those of princess Diana. The collection on her exceeds 1,000, and shows the princess at every stage of her life, from her marriage to the birth of her two children, to her meeting with Mother Teresa.

Flowers, animals, cars, planes, sports personalities, locomotives, Greek paintings, political figures, festivals, maps, important days like Women?s Day, World AIDS Day, independence day of various countries, medicines, are some of the themes, which seem to make his collection endless. Many of which, like the one on Rama Varma I, the king of Cochin, released in 1896, among others, are rare ones.

Apart from his collection of stamps on Brian Lara, Ian Botham, Donald Bradman, he also has an interesting collection of stamps on love and the different symbols of it, like St Valentine. The Valentine collection is from the United States of America, Philippines, Netherlands, Germany, Finland, France, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Israel, Switzerland, Australia, Brazil and Belgium. ?The Valentine collection I have is unique and I use that to spread love and national integrity among the youths,? Fr John says.

His only wish is that he could be part of some philatelist club, so that he could interact with other collectors like him.

But in spite of the lack of such facility, his spirit remains undaunted. He admits that at times it is extremely difficult to balance his work and hobby mainly because he is so far removed from mainstream life. But while he rues that, he is also thankful that he is never really cut off from life. Thanks to his collection.

Abhijeet Mukherjee