Hailing from Arangabad village under Bari block in Jajpur district, Sasanka Sekhar Das (34) received the glorious India Book of Records (IBR) recently for collecting a total of 392 newspapers on a single day on January 26, 2012.
“I am the record holder of the largest collections of single day newspaper from India and other countries. I did hard work to collect all the newspapers of 16 languages on a single day through my friends and relatives”, said a delighted Sasanka.
Sasanka, who works in the Indian Grameen Services, has dedicated his time and money to collect newspapers from different countries and States. So far, he has collected 2100 newspapers in 62 languages of 82 countries.
Except a crudely-written nameplate in front of his house, there is nothing to welcome visitors to Sasanka’s house. However, one can find hundreds of newspapers wrapped in plastic cover files in several shelves of four rooms inside his house.
Newspapers like The Washington Post, The Arab News, The Guardian, The Gulf Times, China Daily, Daily Mail and 300 more such foreign newspapers are on the display. Besides, hundreds of newspapers published in different languages of India are included in his collection.
Sasanka, who has been fascinated towards newspapers since his schooling, has converted his house into a newspaper museum. Tucked away in serpentine lane of the village, his home attracts a lot of curious visitors. He also displays his newspaper collections in various village festivals.
The notion that collection of newspapers is a boring hobby is far from the truth, says the IBR holder.