Matchless!

Pillay8217;s early collecting interest lay in the direction of posters of film stars, stamps and picture postcards. 8220;I was crazy about films as a child and loved writing to stars,8221; admits the genial gentleman. This explains his taking up at the National Film Archive of India NFAI, as a daftary in the accounts section. His passion for matchbox labels is more recent, one which started in 1993 to be exact. 8220;Once, as I was walking out of my house opposite the Bopodi octroi post, I came across a matchbox which the driver of a passing truck had chucked out. It had an interesting scene of a landscape on it and I decided to keep it.8221; That was enough to spark off Pillay8217;s interest in matchboxes.

His collection comprises labels of historical figures Chhatrapati Shivaji, Maharana Pratap Singh, Bhagat Singh, Gautam Buddha, wildlife lions, peacocks, elephants, a section on cats and mice and film stars. How does he go about his hobby? 8220;I get matchbox labels from all over. On weekends, I make the rounds of the Bopodi octroi post, paan shops and some collector friends. I haven8217;t needed to spend much on my hobby. Friends, colleagues and visitors to the NFAI from all over the globe helped enormously in adding to my collection,8221; he says.

His most treasured recent additions include labels from just before the time of Indian independence 8211; among them faded pictures of a flower girl, flags with 1947 printed above them, the Sarnath lions, a map of undivided India. 8220;These were given to me by Shanta Krishnamurthy, who works in the administrative section of the NFAI. It was part of her uncle8217;s collection, and when she came to know about my hobby, she gave them to me,8221; he smiles.

He also recalls with delight the time he received a batch of English matchbox labels by post in 1997. 8220;I had been written about in a magazine called Children8217;s World, a copy of which fell into the hands of John Summers, a British matchbox labels collector, and he got in touch with me.8221;

A Swiss matchbox in the shape of a ski shoe, an Italian one shaped like a drum and a Spanish matchbox shaped like a book, items that find pride of place in his drawing room, were also given to him by Mumbai-based Rekha Sapru, when she came to know of his unusual hobby.

Pillay has held 11 exhibitions in various parts of the city and hopes to house his collection in a museum later, as his family is not particularly interested in his hobby. 8220;What I love best about these exhibitions is the expression of joy that I see on children8217;s faces when they look at the matchbox labels.8221; A joy, that he believes, has no match!