Visitors at Kolkata's wax museum, which is a mini-version of the iconic Madame Tussauds in London
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has finally brought a bit of London to Kolkata. The city now has its own Madame Tussauds, a mini version of the iconic wax museum in London.
The museum currently has 19 wax statues of famous personalities, including those of Mahatma Gandhi, Sourav Ganguly and Amitabh Bachchan. But the biggest draw here seems to be the statue of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, with people queuing up to pose with her.
Her wax version is sitting at an office desk and smiling. "She looks younger, happy and, in fact, glamorous," said Anita Adhikari, one of the visitors.
But some reports suggest the chief minister was not entirely happy with her statue apparently because it was literally larger than life.
The museum was inaugurated by Ms Banerjee on Tuesday, and opened to the public today.
Though it is located at a somewhat remote location -- at Rajarhat in suburban Kolkata -- the turnout of visitors on the first day was encouraging.
"I have not been to London or Madam Tussauds, so it is really nice to have this wax museum here in our own city," said Ranbir, one of the visitors.
Prasad, another visitor, said, "I have been to London and Madam Tussauds. And I am really proud to have a wax museum in Kolkata."
Asked which statues seemed to be the least lifelike, most visitors agreed they were of legendary actors Suchitra Sen and Uttam Kumar, Bengali cinema's most popular romantic duo.
The museum is called Mother's Wax Museum, and no one seems to know why. But Ms Banerjee has reportedly asked that statues of Mother Teresa, and Swami Vivekananda's disciple Sister Nivedita, be included in the collection.
Some visitors did raise the issue of the tickets, at Rs 150, being a tad expensive. And there was no sign of the wax statue of the late Jyoti Basu -- the longest-serving Chief Minister of West Bengal - which an artist had presented to the CPM leader.
Others who have found a place in the museum are Ram Krishna Paramhans, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose, Maradona, Kapil Dev, Manna Dey, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar and Mithun Chakraborty.