Flight of fancy

Long before technology revolutionised and allowed for instant communication postal service was king ldquoIt functioned like a finetuned machine In fact at the turn of the last century there were at least 14 postal deliveries taking place every day in the city of Bombay This means that the postman would knock on your door 14 times daily All these deliveries were timed with the arrival of trains With the General Post Office GPO right behind Victoria Terminus now CSMT the postman would be out on his route within 40 minutes of a train reaching the platformrdquo says Piyush Khaitan a Bengalurubased aerophilatelist and entrepreneur This welloiled system came into its own with air travelFront cover of a mail carried on the first Tata Sons flight from Karachi to Bombay on October 14 1932 The flight was piloted by JRD Tata and the cover too was signed by himNot known to many the first time a letter was carried by air anywhere in the world was in India On February 18 1911 a sevenmile flight from Allahabad to Naini across the River Yamuna saw around 6500 postal articles being delivered ldquoSix months later a similar airmail flight was recreated in England by Walter Windham who incidentally was also the force behind the first airmail service in Allahabad So India has a very close link with the history of airmailrdquo he addsKhaitan calls himself an ldquoamateur hobbyistrdquo but the ease with which he rattles off airmail trivia is fascinating A seasoned collector he started engaging in aerophilately 12 years ago ldquoAt the time some senior philatelists gave me very wise advice They said lsquoFirst read the book then buy the coverrsquo And so I spent the early part of my journey just reading about the subject before collectingrdquoAlso Read Discoverys new documentary uncovers the accident of Vande Bharat mission flightA cover carried on the worldrsquos first airmail service between Allahabad and Naini on February 18 1911A couple of years ago Khaitan along with the help of researcher Dharmdev Maurya launched the web page wwwindianairmailscom which is a treasuretrove of aerophilatelic literature and documentation Updated monthly the web page currently comprises only a fraction of his vast collection and research which he has segregated into five categories Pre1953 Airlines Tata Airlines Air India Indian Airlines and Others It offers a compelling portrait of how letters travelled by air the different routes they took and postal stamps that were used For a collector the insights run deep ldquoFirst of course you get a lot of cultural insightsmdashthe way people corresponded or how they addressed the letters But it also offers an understanding of the development of airmails and communicationrdquo says Khaitan Here he cites how the first international airmail service from India to England in 1929 took eight days to reach Nearly a decade later by 1939 they were able to shrink that journey to twoandahalf days with the development of more modern aircraftFront of a post card that was carried on the flight showing the plane and pilot It was signed by pilot Henri Pequet and organiser Walter WindhamThe complex geopolitics and economic agendas that came into play also influenced the way journeys were undertaken ldquoThere was a time when Persia present day Iran was under very strong German influence They opposed the British Imperial Airways flying through their country and hence a longer route had to be taken via the Gulfrdquo says Khaitan Similarly Italy which was bang in the middle of India and England objected to any mail flying over their country so the mail had to be taken by rail to Italy before it was taken onward to EnglandA cover dated January 24 1966 recovered from the wreckage of the Air India Boeing 707 which crashed into Mont Blanc while descending to land in Geneva There were no survivors on board Dr Homi Bhabha was on this flightWhen it came to matters of aviation India though then a part of the British Empire was fairly independent and forthright says Khaitan The Government of India very early on legislated that any foreign airline including Imperial Airways would have to deliver all mail at the first point of arrival in India This would then be delivered by a local airline to the rest of the country ldquoThis was a big catalyst to develop civil aviation in IndiardquoThe postage stamp issued to commemorate the Air India International flight BombayLondon June 8 1948One of Khaitanrsquos most prized collectible is a letter which flew on the first Air India international flight from Bombay to London on June 8 1948 ldquoAt the time the newlyformed Government of India released a special postage stamp of 12 annas to commemorate this flight This stamp was valid only for one day and only on mail carried on that flight Now that was a unique event in world philately Something like that had never happened beforerdquo says Khaitan who has more than 250 covers which were flown on that flight Khaitan with Vivek Matthai during an exhibition of his Air India collection at the Taj Lands End Mumbai in December 2016In the last 12 years he has built a huge network to keep his passion going which includes trading with other collectors worldwide dealing with auction houses including Sothebyrsquos and attending stamp fairs ldquoOne needs to keep a track of everything that is happeningrdquo He admits that because itrsquos such an exciting field a collector might be tempted to lay hands on anything and everything they find ldquoBefore you realise yoursquod have spent a lot of money on it Some of these items are fairly expensive and so I always suggest that people who are interested in aerophilately continue reading and researchingrdquo says Khaitan who runs a Mumbaibased financial services companyKhaitan is also the proud owner of the largest collections of Air India memorabilia comprising over 6000 AI artefacts His online repository boasts of everything from airplane photographs calendars diaries tickets coasters first flight covers menu cards posters and time tables Among these is the 1974 National Awardwinning film made by Air India titled To Serve Is To Love which he says is perhaps the only surviving print of the film The 16minute short encapsulates the journey of four flight attendants on AIrsquos first Jumbo Jet ldquoI tracked the film to the US and immediately managed to get it digitised at a lab in Chicagordquosays Khaitan He received help from Vivek Matthai to build his collectionOnce the lockdown lifts he is hoping to apply to the Guinness World Records ldquoAll through the 1950s rsquo60s and rsquo70s Air India was the finest airline in the world Its level of service efficiency crew and modern aircrafts were legendary They occupied a space which left every other airline behindrdquoAlso Read World Post Day India Posts survival plan in email riot