CHENNAI: Journals being sent across to subscribers by post is common, but a journal printed in a post card is indeed a rarity. ‘Anu’ (Atom) is a registered Tamil monthly post card journal published from Sivaganga and it reaches even foreign countries through subscription.Started in 1991, Anu now has around 800 regular readers, including 600 subscribers. Anu had found its way into the Limca Book of Records in 1992. N Muthukrishnan (53), editor of this journal, is a painter by profession. He was inspired by his grandfather to start this post card journal.“From his native village Thavalikulam, my grandfather used to write post cards thrice a year to my father living in Sivaganga. I read those cards at my young age. Those cards were full of stories on the happenings in my village for a span of 2-3 months. I always wondered how he could write like that. From those cards, I came up with this post card journal idea,” Muthukrishnan recounted.Muthukrishnan himself does the layout for the journal with the help of the software Corel Draw and even sketches the pictures for the journal. His interest in Tamil literature and science reflects in the content as Anu predominantly carries poems and scientific facts.This post card journal consists of several parts, including jokes, poems, pictures, small stories and even a Letters to the Editor column. Sometimes, it carries advertisements as well.Explaining about the expenditure, he said, ”In total, I am spending around `3,500 for the journal every month. When I started in 1991, there was no need to paste extra postage stamp for printed matter on the post card. But a decade ago, a new rule came up after which we are required to stick an extra stamp on the post cards with printed matter.”At present, to mail a post card with anything printed on it, one has to paste stamps for `6. Muthukrishnan now sends the journal through book-post as he does not want to lose the Limca Record tag which quotes Anu to be a ‘Tamil monthly printed on actual post card’. Anu’s annual subscription rate is `100.“There are readers in Singapore, Malaysia and the US as well. In 2010, Singapore Tamil Sangam organised a function there and felicitated me for Anu. They presented an award to me appreciating my effort,” Muthukrishnan added.Anu’s subscribers are given various special calendars every year free of cost since 2004. The speciality of those calendars is the ingenuity - they are either printed on a bottle, or a banyan leaf, a piece of ribbon, a handkerchief or even a calendar that is half an inch in length.
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