Birbhum home, where life was ‘in camera’

MIRATI (BIRBHUM): Pranab Mukherjee negotiated the thin line between family tradition and his responsibility as the constitutional head of the country as effortlessly as he navigated his way through Indian politics for over five decades.
Soon after becoming the President in 2012, he imposed restrictions on himself of not getting photographed in the attire of a purohit at the 118-year-old Durga Puja in his ancestral village of Mirati in Birbhum.
But this did not mean that he drifted away from the people of his village who attended the Durga Puja every year. In fact, they were surprised to find him amidst them, urging everybody to have the prasad before leaving. Like previous years, the villagers did not need any security clearance even if it meant that Mukherjee was now the President of India.
Mukherjee was a student at Kirnahar Shibchandra High School and Suri Vidyasagar College. After becoming the President, he visited both the institutes. At his college, he had touched the feet of his former teacher on the dais.
Nilkamal Banerjee, the headmaster of his school, said: “There is an old block of rooms named after his father for which he contributed before becoming the President.”