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A teacher with a note-worthy hobby

ALAPPUZHA: As the elections are around the corner and political parties have declared their candidates, an LP school teacher in Cherthala is busy searching for one-rupee notes. Reason?


He has been collecting notes, (numbering to around 3,000 now) which have specific serial numbers matching the birth dates of popular figures, including former presidents, prime ministers and political leaders.



Now, he wants to expand his collection by adding one-rupee notes with serial numbers matching the birth dates of all the candidates in the fray for the Lok Sabha polls.

“It has been my hobby to collect one-rupee notes which carry the serial numbers that denote the birth dates of prominent politicians. Now, the Lok Sabha elections are around the corner and I am looking for one-rupee notes which have the serial numbers matching with the birth dates of all the candidates fighting the elections. I have managed to collect one-rupee notes with serial numbers denoting the birth dates of Lok Sabha candidates, including Kummanam Rajashekharan, Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi , Sonia Gandhi , Shashi Tharoor, Kodikunnil Suresh and A M Ariff. My plan is to collect one-rupee notes of at least 40 candidates from Kerala contesting the Lok Sabha polls,” said 33-year-old Arvind Kumar Pai.

Arvind was featured in the introduction of the India Book Of Records in 2015 along with Arvind Kejriwal , Narendra Modi and Kiran Bedi. Pai was among the top 100 Indian Record Holders felicitated by the World Record Union at Delhi in 2017.

Aravind also has a collection of onerupee notes with serial number matching the dates in which major political incidents took place in Kerala, as well as in India. He has notes denoting the day when demonetization and the Emergency were announced. He also has one-rupee notes with serial numbers matching the day, month and year when Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were assassinated.

Arvind joined as a school teacher with the Government Town LP School, Cherthala in 2016. He first entered the Limca Book of Records in 2015 by affixing 322 stamps on a cover and gifting it to his mother on her birthday in 2013. In the same year, His name featured in the India Book of Records and Asia Book of Records after he became the first person to collect most number of Gandhi stamps printed in over 100 foreign countries.

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