A plastic shop owner in Kasi Chetty Street, Sowcarpet, Chennai, has displayed around 200 photos of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, of whom he is a huge fan.
Anand Kumar Bhowmick, who says his father was from West Bengal and his mother a South Indian, travelled to Kolkata in 2011 a few months after Ms. Banerjee won the elections there, just to meet her.
‘I was surprised’“I did not have even a reserved ticket, I just decided I had to see her. I was very surprised when I got an appointment almost immediately. I was very impressed by her — her house was very simple in a poor area. She was dressed very simply and we spoke for about 20 minutes. I told her how much I admired her for breaking the long reign of the previous government and she said it was the people’s mandate. I came back and started collecting photographs of her,” he said.
Scoured newspapersThe 50-year-old Bhowmick scoured books, newspapers and event went to book fairs in Delhi and Chennai looking for any material on Ms. Banerjee.
His collection is now displayed outside his shop for the benefit of the general public, he says.
Mr. Bhomwick, also an MGR fan, has a collection of his photographs as well as those of other leaders, including Indira Gandhi and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. He lost about 65,000 photographs in the recent floods when his home was inundated. “But that won’t stop me. I will keep on collecting,” he says.
