Pranab Mukherjee’s alma mater — Kirnahar Shibchandra High School — made an exception on Tuesday and kept its doors open for visitors to visit the museum inside the school with memorabilia giving a peep into the former President’s life.

“Pranabbabu was our renowned alumnus and pride of our area. As many local people wanted to visit the museum, we decided to open it today (Tuesday),” said Amit Kumar Bhattacharya, president of the school managing committee.

The school had remained closed ever since the lockdown in March. “The museum was closed since the lockdown. This is the first time we opened it today (Tuesday),” said Prabhakar Bandopadhyay, English teacher and alumnus of the school, who along with security guard Dhananjoy Ghosh took care of visitors.

When miles away Mukherjee was being consigned to flames at the New Delhi’s Lodhi Road crematorium in New Delhi, people in Kirnahar, Parota and Nimre remembered their very own Poltuda, Kakababu or Mamababu as they saw exhibits at the museum.

Hundreds turned up to pay floral tributes at the portrait kept at the Mukherjee ancestral home in Mirati.

At the school museum, which Mukherjee had inaugurated in 2013, people looked at the photographs of the register with his name, his admission book and exam results. Apart from pictures of personal testimonials, Mukherjee had gifted the museum hundreds of mementos and certificates he had received in his political and administrative career spanning over four decades.

The museum was set up at the request of the school authorities as they had wanted to preserve for posterity the memorabilia of their renowned alumnus, who had helmed many key Union ministries before becoming the President of India.

Moving from one exhibit to another, Subhajit Das, a Class X student of the school, said: “I heard he (Mukherjee) was a student of our school. I came here with my two friends to revisit the museum and see his photographs and awards.”

Parjanya Bandopadhyay, an alumnus and now a student of Visva-Bharati, said: “I was a student when I saw him inaugurating the museum in 2013.”

Sitansu Ray, who was a year junior to Mukherjee in school and college Amarnath Dutta

Eighty-two-year-old Sitansu Ray, a year junior to the former President in his school and Suri Vidyasagar College, reflected on his association with “Pranabda”.

“Pranabda’s talents were multifaceted. I saw him participate in debates on political history and the history and contribution of National Congress when he was a student of Class VIII. He never stood first in his class but there was no one who could defeat him in debate,” said Ray, a retired professor of Rabindra Sangeet in Visva-Bharati now settled in Santiniketan.

It was the young Mukherjee’s duty to collect the newspaper from the railway station as no vendor supplied it at his home in Mirati, Ray said.

“Pranabda used to read the newspaper while walking on the mud road. I used to tell him that his habit could lead to an accident, but his argument was that he also had an eye on the road,” said Ray.

“I met Pranabda in 2012 for lunch in Uttarayan complex when he had come for the convocation (of Visva-Bharati). He used to call me Situ and that day he jocularly said — tumi to chul sab pakiye felle (you’ve turned all your hair grey).” In 2013, Ray learnt that the President (Mukherjee) had nominated him as a member of the selection committee of BHU. “I never imagined that he would nominate me,” Ray said.