“Make sure you take the picture at such an angle that it looks like I’m pointing out something in the document to ‘Didi,’” a man told his wife while posing in front of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s statue at the Mother’s Wax Museum here on Sunday.
As the wax replica of actor and State brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan looks on, Ms. Banerjee’s statue seems to be smiling at actor and Trinamool Congress MP Mithun Chakraborty in his “disco dancer” avatar. Actor Amitabh Bachchan’s statue stands next to Mithun’s, with audio clips of his baritone filling the room.
The museum at Rajarhat has 19 life-size models. From Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose to singers like Manna Dey, Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar and Bengali cine idols Suchitra Sen and Uttam Kumar. With acclaimed scientist Jagdish Chandra Bose also sharing space with sporting legends Diego Maradona and Sourav Ganguly, it is a veritable mix of characters.
Literary legends Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam are housed as well. However, filmmaker Satyajit Ray or economist Amartya Sen are conspicuously missing.
Veteran wax sculptor Susanta Roy had made the statues. The museum, inaugurated on November 10 after a year of work, has been developed by the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (WBHIDCO).
Marvelling at the work, Jodie Bharadwaj, who has visited the iconic Madame Tussaud’s wax museum in London, said the figures were “awesome”.
Terming the statues of singer-duo Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar his favourite, visitor Dibyendu Banerjee said: “I really appreciate the thought behind the project.”
Visitors said that most of the statues looked realistic. The models were sculpted using photographs as reference, the sculptor said.
WBHIDCO chairperson-cum-managing director Debashis Sen said the footfall had crossed “1,000 in the first week” since the museum opened.
On an average, 200 people visit the museum daily, which is a far fewer number for a museum.
Perhaps it is due to government’s reluctance to promote the museum.
The museum has no dedicated website and hardly any publicity campaign was run prior to the inauguration. The entry fee is Rs. 150, a stark contrast to the minimal Rs. 20 at the Indian Museum here. “The entry fee is a little high due to the maintenance charges,” museum manager Subrata Biswas says.
