MANGALURU: Wedding is a memorable event in the life most people, if not all. But not many bother to preserve their wedding invitation for long.
But meet Dasharath Singh of Bengaluru who has a penchant to collect wedding invitations of VIPs.
Singh who started the hobby more than 50 years ago, now has a collection of more than 8,500 invitation cards of VIPs.
It consists of invitations of people like former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, former minister Gali Janardhana Reddy, Jeevraj Alva, film actor Vivek Oberoi and others. The display of his collections at Alva’s Nudisiri in Moodbidri has been drawing curious people in hordes.
Apart from this, he displayed some newspapers published on August 15, 1947 carrying the big news of India’s independence. Rare photographs of bullock carts being used to carry a satellite before its launch in 1975, Lal Bahadur Shashtri carrying out his duties as Prime Minister, former prime minister Morarji Desai getting ready for a swim, Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar handing over the dewan’s appointment letter to Sir M Visvesaraya, the under-construction KRS dam and Vidhana Soudha and the world’s first road accident picture are some of his prized collections.
His collections also include wooden ballot box used in the country’s first general election in 1952, a gramophone, a radio of yesteryears and swords and other articles used in wars by kings, a one lakh year old calender and others. Singh who organsied scores of exhibitions of his prized possessions at schools, colleges, universities and others, said he is happy to display his collections at Moodbidri and the response is “overwhelming”.