BLOW IT FOR BRAZIL: Robinho lookalike Dipankar Mondal dressed in his favourite team’s colours and blowing his self-made vuvuzela on Tuesday. (Amit Datta)

The world may be on the horns of a dilemma over how to drown the drone of a thousand vuvuzelas but a 28-year-old Calcutta soccer fan has become a minor para celebrity by “converting” the local bhepu into its Zulu counterpart.

Dipankar Mondal has been blowing his own vuvuzela ever since he spotted one on a wall painting and started mass producing them, continuing an old tradition of imitation in the city’s sports circuit — be it the Samba in the Mohun Bagan-East Bengal galleries on the Maidan or the Mexican wave in the Eden Gardens stands.

“I had no idea the vuvuzela would become such a phenomenon. As for me, I had never enjoyed so much attention in my para before. I am even being interviewed!” said the green grocer by day and tutor by night, whose “Robinho look” is also attracting attention.

Dipankar’s version of the vuvuzela may be little more than a whistle wrapped in cardboard cone and confetti but it has its fans.

The “manufacturing process” is simple: roll a piece of cardboard into a cone, staple it and fix it to a whistle before wrapping the contraption in yellow and green marble paper. Paste a few strips of wool and you are done.

Vuvuzela fans in Dipankar’s para on Harish Mukherjee Road, however, would rather have one made by him.

“I have already made several vuvuzelas, most of them small ones that cost me no more than Rs 5. I have also made a large, yellow one that cost about Rs 20 because I decorated it with green and yellow wool to match the Brazil colours. That’s my touch,” he smiled.

The plastic ones that are disappearing off the shelves in South Africa cost 2.95 Euros (Rs 168.30) and are much shriller, each emanating up to 127 decibels of humming sound that’s getting on the nerves of players, coaches and TV audiences alike.

Dipankar’s vuvuzelas are easier on the ear, the sound originating from the embedded jack-in-the-box whistles that are popular among children.

“I have acquired a vuvuzela for Brazil’s opening match (kicking off at Tuesday midnight) and I certainly won’t think that it’s a fake while blowing it. This is just a way of getting into the mood for a match featuring my favourite team,” said first-year BBA student Ricky Walia.

For Dipankar, the attention coming his way is small consolation for some serious missed opportunities in life. “I regret having to quit studies after my BCom Part I exams for want of funds. My father used to earn Rs 3,000 a month selling groceries and I needed Rs 1,500 to continue my studies. It wasn’t practical, and I was forced to opt out,” he recalled.

But soccer — especially the World Cup — has always been a wonderful distraction for Dipankar from life’s struggles. “I have been making horns and hats with Brazil colours during every World Cup I have followed on TV,” he said.

So is he going to work on his vuvuzela to make it sound more like the South African drone machine than a bhepu in Brazil colours? “I started making these for fun but now that it has brought me fame, I am trying to improve on it, especially the look,” said Harish Mukherjee Road’s resident “Robinho”, flaunting a Brazil jersey and fun shades.