The only one of its kind in eastern India, Mother’s Wax Museum (MWM) has become a star attraction for the people of Kolkata as well as tourists to the city. As of now, seven lakh people have visited this museum, since its opening four years ago.
This museum of wax statues of famous Indian people is the brainchild of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. It was inaugurated by her on November 10, 2014. The place was named after the icon of Kolkata, Mother Teresa, and her wax figure finds a pride of place there.
There are wax figures of great personalities including social reformers of the 19th century, writers, poets and scientists, people from the field of entertainment and sports, as well as a Hollywood section and a children’s section with statues of popular cartoon characters. As photography is allowed inside the museum, people find a lot of joy in taking selfies with the statues.
People include Vidyasagar, Shri Ramakrishna, Maa Sarada, Swami Vivekananda, Sister Nivedita, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyajit Ray, Manna Dey, Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakrabarty, Shah Rukh Khan, Audrey Hepburn, Mr Bean (the popular character from British television), Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Kapil Dev, Diego Maradona and several others.
A new attraction is getting one’s own statues made. At the museum store, at a cost of Rs 2,000 per person, people can get their own faces made out of stone dust. As souvenirs, people can also buy miniatures of the wax figures and framed photographs of views of old Kolkata.