The French were in the city of Pondicherry for 250 years at a trading post. As they were there to trade, and it was a city open to trade as far back as the Romans there was no need to try to convert locals to French cultural or religious practice. This is great for the stamp collector as the place can show off the exotic foreign culture in the context of a French prism. Now Puducherry has the tables turned and likes to show off architectural relics of the French now firmly in the context of modern India. No stamps though. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp shows off the local Hindu Temple to Kali. The overstamp showing the new currency formulation that year inadvertently tell the stamp collector that the place is really all about money. The vast bulk of the people were then and are now Indian. Elections in the late 1940s saw the people vote to stay French. As in Hong Kong, not wanting to break the golden egg trumped national identity. As with Hong Kong the nation will eventually enforce their will, golden egg be dammed.
Todays stamp is issue A5, a 1 Fannon 6 caches (1.5 Fannon, 8 Fannons made a Rupee) issued by French India in 1923. The new currency that year replaced Centimes and Francs. An earlier version of this stamp from 1914 has no overstamp. This was a 26 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.50 cents used. Without the overstamp the value would go to $2.25.
As the Indians of the day were not writing down their own history at the time, the first mentions of the marketplace at Pondicherry were in logs of Roman Empire traders in the first century AD. At the time the city was known as Poduke. It was part of the then Indian Empire of Kanchipuram.
The French arrived in the area in 1674 under the auspices of the privately owned French East India company. The company had a large investment personally by the French King and had a monopoly on French trade with Asia. The company fairly quickly failed as it was very expensive to maintain far flung outposts from India to Madagascar to Mauritius. After the financial failure the French government stepped in more formally to protect the enclave from British or Indian encroachment.
Kali first appeared as a Goddess around 600 AD. Kali translates into the feminine form of the fullness of time. She appears when the higher Goddess Durga is attacked by two demons. Durga responds with such anger that her skin darkens resulting in Kali appearing out of her forehead. Kali’s is colored dark blue with sunken eyes, a tiger skin sari dress and a garland of severed human heads. She quickly defeats the two demons. I can understand why the stamp shows her Temple rather than Kali directly. It might have made Pondicherry seem unwelcoming.
Well my drink is empty so I will have to wait till tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. 27th wedding anniverary greetings to Mrs. The Philatelist who takes all the stamp pictures for the website.