Indian Americans have been trying for a long time to get the U.S. Postal Service to issue a Diwali stamp. The Aussies on the other hand have gone the extra kilometer. They have featured Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan on one of their postage stamps. See for yourself:
Saif Ali Khan who has danced his way to Australian history with his performance in Commonwealth Games. He became the first Indian to feature on a postage stamp published in Australia.
50-cent stamp has Saif among those released on March 27. It shows him on stage in a green kurti with other dancers. Rani Mukherjee and Aishwarya Rai had no such luck who were with Saif from Bollywood. [Link]
I can’t help but find this funny. Indians didn’t really represent at the Olympics, but seemed to do okay at the Commonwealth Games. Still, it is a Bollywood star that is on one of the official stamps from the games and not an athlete.
How can they pick Saif over THIS!
Actually, I find the sudden fortune of the nameless ‘extras’ even more bizzare. Half a country sees your face everyday but no one really knows who you are.
And to think each of these ‘junior artistes’ — as they are known in phillums — beat out TMBWITW!
they seemed to have only featured australian athletes in their commonwealth games stamps series. this saif one is part of the defining moments of the closing ceremony series.
Absolutely fantastic that Saif is featured in the stamp !!! Definitely worth a lick even though it is a sticker in Australia !!!!
Abhi, interesting that you bring up the point about a bollywood actor instead of an athelete as a choice for the stamp, reminds me of the whole olympic torch being carried by film stars and them being in the spotlight for an event that is focus on athletes. Is it just me or does it seem like Bollywood creeps its way into everything that conveys Indian culture to the world outside.
/swoon.. . .saif so dreamy!
😉
The same handful of stars are even more monotously oppressive in Bombay, in ads on billboards and lampposts and in print and TV ads. It’s like older Hollywood when stars did lots of domestic endorsements.
SO worth a lick. I heart Saif, passionately. Or you know, it could be lust instead of love, but I’ve stopped keeping track. Licking has taken over.
damn, i thought i was happy when the muppets got their own stamp in the usa… those aussies are far ahead of us… 😉
Saif!!! Yessssssssss! I love the Prince!
I don’t get it. He’s plastic and wooden, with the acting range of Keanu Reeves. I swear he got through Parineeta with two expressions, like Keanu in Bill & Ted’s … Where’s the appeal?
Abhi, this stamp is a part of the Commonwealth games series. It just shows a picture of the closing ceremony, nothing to do with India or Saif in perticular. Saif was there (along with Rani Mukherjee and a 54 other entertainers because the next Commonwealth games in 2010 is to be held in Delhi.
Yes, I know. I copied the picture of the stamp out of a larger picture that showed all of the stamps from the Commonwealth Games series. That fact is also in the article I linked above.
Ennis,
You should check out Ek Hasina Thi, where Saif plays a very negative role indeed (opposite Urmila Matondkar). He’s surprisingly good — to some extent because his on-screen personality in the film is so at odds with the usual harmless-&-confused roles he often plays in some of his more mainstream films.
I am waiting for ‘Being Cyrus’ because he is supposed to have outdone himself.
I guess the reason that they had a Bollywood actor on the stamp but not an athlete is for the simple reason that India has no world class athlete, no World Champion, no Olympic champion (I looooooooove cricket but that does not count). While the shooters are now world class, in popular public imagination the world over if you are not a swimmer, Track and field athelete, a gymnast your name’s recall value is zilch.