Sankaran's postcards

 

Shankaran is unique in the way he greets and wishes people on their birthdays. Shankaran sends a post card with birthday wishes. I have got several cards from him over the years. The greeting card will invariably have some additional information. He lists the names of some well-known people who were born on the same date. All of his friends receive such cards from Shankaran.

There are three ways the card lands on your table. He would post it and it would be delivered. If he was in the office itself, he would personally come to wish and hand over the birthday card. If one was not around in the office, he would leave it at the table.

Shankaran continued with this practice even though he left TOI a few years ago. His greeting card would still land on the table or he would personally leave it at the reception.

I worked in the editorial and he worked in another department. We would always talk. We would talk on subjects that I was not interested in. He would assume that the two subjects that he was obsessed with was something even I was keen about. He presumed that I knew more. I would tell him that I hardly had any knowledge of the subject and that he would have to start a conversation afresh. Shankaran would find it unacceptable. I could hardly convince him that he had better and in-depth knowledge about those subjects because he followed them carefully, though not a journalist himself.

"But you write on the subject," he would remind me. "That does not mean I know more than what I have already written," I would say in response. Shankaran would always be unconvinced and make his displeasure known at my 'non-cooperation' in talking about the subjects that he so much wanted to strike a conversation on.

By the way, it is not just I who receive the post cards from Shankaran on my birthday. He makes it a point to send to all his friends.

There used to be a time, as we know, that friends used to buy birthday cards and send the greetings by post. Internet changed it. There were cards available online. You could choose and mail it to your friends. Then came mobile phones. SMS became a way of greeting. Whatsapp and social media are now the way we extend wishes.

For Shankaran, only the post card is the most preferred way of greeting his friends. Long after people stopped using post cards, Shankaran remained true to his style of greeting. That was his hallmark. Getting a birthday post card from Shankaran was a given. It was taken for granted. Shankaran never disappointed.

The last card that I received from him was on January 10, 2024 for my birthday. He wrote the address of the newspaper I worked for. As usual on the left side, he mentioned the names of two prominent people whose birthdays were on the same date. This time he mentioned that India's first railway minister John Mathai was born on 10 January, 1886. He also mentioned that playback singer K J Yesudas was born on 10 January, 1940.

Shankaran passed away in 2025. No more post cards. The post cards that he has sent over the years are precious. They will always remind me of him