Though he studied only up to class IV, Nedumangad Rasheed always found time to read newspapers and keep clippings on important issues.
A few months ago, he met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who appreciated him and directed the Information and Public Relations Department to help him hold an exhibition of his clippings. Rasheed, 63, is now a happy man.
The first in a series of exhibitions planned by the department began in Palakkad on Thursday. Over 2,000 newspaper cuttings and 2,000 photographs printed in newspapers are on display. The Palakkad Press Club is also associating with the four-day exhibition.
A part-time sweeper with the Health Department, Rasheed said major incidents, especially tragedies and death of icons, formed a major part of his collection. Rasheed’s father died when he was hardly three years old. “I have difficulty in writing though I can read newspapers,” he said.
He began working as a newspaper distributor after polio paralysed his left hand at the age of six. His vocation made him an avid reader of newspapers.
“I focussed on the demise of important personalities. My collection comprises reports on the death of Jawaharlal Nehru, Fidel Castro, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, EMS Namboodiripad, Pattom Thanu Pillai, A.K. Gopalan, Acharya Vinoba Bhave, and Narasimha Rao and actors such as Sathyan, Prem Nazir, Jayan, Adoor Bhasi, Monisha, M.G. Ramachandran, Thilakan, and Soman.”
Reports on major wars, earthquakes, elections, accidents, natural calamities, festivals, and police actions too are on display. Though Rasheed only collected clippings of Malayalam dailies, his friends helped him get clippings from English, Tamil, and Arab dailies. His exhibition has special categories on former Presidents K.R. Narayanan and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. The expo, on at the annex of the Palakkad town hall, was inaugurated by municipal chairperson Prameela Sasidharan.
