An engineer who has a love affair with toys

A 30-years old engineer, Arupanand Rao from Orissa, has been fond of collecting different kinds of objects since childhood. He had collected 1500 Pokemon trump cards in his school days. There used to be a popular TV program - Beyblade, which was based on a character looking like a spinning top (lattu). Seeing this program, he collected about 25 mechanical spinning tops, which were made of metal and plastic. At one time, he started collecting different types of domestic and foreign coins and colourful match boxes, however, later on, he gave away his rare collection of 200 coins to a friend.

The hobby of buying popular action and superhero figurines caught his attention in 2017 when he was preparing for his UPSC exams in Delhi. This craze continued till 2021, after which he returned to his home town Patnagarh in District Bolangir, Orissa. He has been in his home town since then. He collected a total of 331 figurnies, which is a record and for which his name got included in the India Book of Records (IBR) on January 9, 2022. These figurines (toys) ofpopular action and superheroes adorn an entire wall of Arup’s living room. These include figurines of superheroes such as Ironman, X Men, Captain America, Moonknight, Avengers, Deadpool, Thanos, Hulk, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel, Transformers, Silver Surfer, Wolverine, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy and Venom among others.

Arup said that he had to spend a significant amount of money to collect these figurines, although he has received some of them as gifts also. He bought most of them from Delhi markets and Amazon as well. An Amazon staffer helped him a lot in this crazy task. The salesman not only informed him about new items, but also provided rare figurines. He spent about 1.5 lakh rupees for this collection. He raised this amount from pocket money and salary from his first job. Later, he did not like the job, so quit. Initially, family members and acquaintances made fun of this childish hobby and asked him to not waste his pocket money on toys. But Arup had a different take on this. He considers this hobby to be an investment as these figurines have a significantresale value and some of them can fetch great returns for him in the future.

Arup is preparing for Civil Services Examination these days after completing his B.Tech from Biju Patnaik University, Rourkela, Orissa. He has done B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering, while in 12th standard he has also studied Biology. The young man is so fond of wildlife photography that if given a chance, he is keen to join the NetGeo channel, for which he has been advised to do a journalism and mass communication course. He is a member of the NatGeo Society, a platform for freelance photographers. He has also done a lot of work as a freelance editor of Wikipedia to raise awarenessabout snakes and their conservation. He thinks people kill snakes out of ignorance, as not all reptiles are poisonous. Similarly, on Canada’s inaturallist.org website, he has shared numerous pictures of butterflies and moths. Arup has been interested in reading comics, making cartoons and drawing since childhood. Today he has made a record in his name through this hobby. The record for collecting the maximum number of figurines of superheroes was set by Arupananda Rao (born on February 26, 1991) of Bolangir, Orissa. As per the India Book of Records, he collected a total number of 331 figurines of action and superheroes, as confirmed on January 9, 2022.