73-year-old Bolangir man Bajaranglal Agrawal’s currency collections match DoBs of PM, CMs & Union ministers
The collections also include PM’s important interactions with Barack Obama, Donal Trump, Xi Jinping and Putin
The elderly man also has collection of currencies of 210 countries of the world
A small-time auto-parts businessman, Bajranglal invests all his profits in collecting rare currencies
By Nalini Sahu & Swagatika Bhutia
Bhubaneswar, Nov. 18:It’s really enviable and praiseworthy. Bajaranglal Agrawal, a 73-year-old man hailing from Odisha’s Bolangir town, has rare collections of Indian currency notes with serial numbers that show dates of birth of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and remaining 53 Union ministers.
Besides, he has a collection of currency notes showing dates of birth of all Chief Ministers of the Indian states, governors, eminent cricketers, renowned film stars; martyrs and freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, reputed journalists and television news anchors; and important events such as Navakalebar Utsav or re-incarnation ceremony of Lord Jagannath.
Notes with serial numbers supporting dates of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s important international engagements, including meeting with ex-Presidents of United States of America – Barack Obama and Donald Trump and; Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Xinping — also adore the album of Bajaranglal.
The elderly man also has a collection of currencies of 210 countries of the world. Some of the notes are unexpectedly longer in size and a few others do not have serial numbers either on the upper or lower portions.
What is quite interesting is that Bajaranglal has some unique collections of notes with same-sides (similar images on both the sides); and coins with only head symbols and no tail sides. Moreover, his collections include Indian currencies which are defectively printed with mismatches in upper and lower serial numbers.
Bajaranglal, a small-time auto-parts dealer, has one big dream; to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hand over the currency note serial number which shows his (Modi’s) date of birth and dates of all his important international engagements. He has already submitted mega star Amitabh Bachchan the currency note that carries the serial number matching his name. He also wants to meet Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik to hand over the currency that carries his date of birth.
Some of the collected currencies have even no serial numbers because of defective printing in the mint.
“Wherever I go, I try to collect currencies with serial numbers that match the date of births of important persons or important events. This gives me a lot of satisfaction,” says Bajaranglal, adding, he often pays five to ten times more money to collect rare currency notes and coins.
His total collections, adds the septuagenarian numismatist, exceeds more than the 12,000-mark.
Bajaranglal says his wife Laxmidevi Agrawal and three sons whole-heartedly support him in his mission.
“With the blessings of God Balaji of Rajasthan, everyone in my family supports me to pursue my passion. Only my grand-daughter Shriya Mittal jokingly tells me – ‘Grandpa, this is sheer wastage of money. Why don’t you buy mobile phones and other gadgets to me with the money you are spending on coin collections?’ However, she takes care of proper preservation of the collections,” adds Bajranglal.
In 2000, some people offered him more than two crore rupees to sell his collections. However, he politely declined the offer.
