After
30-year-old businessman Samrat Moze followed the footsteps of late
legislator Ramesh Wanjale and caused a major stir in Pune early this
year by moving around the place wearing golden ornaments — weighing 8.5
kilograms — on his body, a third gold man has now surfaced in the same
city of western Maharashtra in India.
The
new gold man, Datta Phuge, has stitched himself a shirt made out of the
precious yellow metal weighing approximately 3.5 kilograms. The shirt
is in addition to 6 to 6.5 kilograms of golden ornaments — including
chains, bracelets and rings and necklaces — that he has been wearing for
the past few years.
In
effect, this “10 kilogram gold man” — as 42-year-old Phuge prefers to
call himself — is being valued in terms of money at around Rs3.25 crore
(N92,514,500), of which the golden shirt — his new possession — is a
part and it is worth Rs1.27 crore (N36,151,820).
Apart from wearing so many golden ornaments, what made him to stitch himself a golden shirt?
“Unlike
many, I have no passion for high-end luxury vehicles like Audi or
purchasing something else that is fancy. I had money and wanted to
invest in gold. Even while investing in gold, I wanted to do something
that would earn me the title of being a gold man. Then the idea of
stitching myself a golden shirt came to me when I visited a jewellery
shop a month ago,” Phuge told newsmen over the phone from Pune.
A
finance broker by profession, Phuge is the husband of an NCP corporator
from Pune Seema Phuge. “I am a Maratha (a person belonging to a warrior
caste). Marathas have fascination for wearing golden ornaments. I am no
different”.
Ask
him as to how did he land so much of money to purchase such a huge
quantity of gold. “I had landed property at Chakan near Pune. In 2005,
there was a proposal to set up an airport in that area. As a result,
land prices shot up phenomenally. Making most of the situation, I sold
two acres of land that I owned. Whatever the money I earned from the
sale, I invested in a financial firm which helped me get sizeable
returns. Of the money earned, I have re-invested on gold,” Phuge said.
According
to Phuge, velvet cloth has been used from inside to stitch the golden
shirt. “Though there is gold on its exteriors, it is stitched in such a
way that it can be folded and kept inside a shelf like any other shirt.
In all, It took jewellers 17 days to have the golden shirt stitched,” he
said. The shirt has been stitched by Ranka Jewellers, a leading jeweler
firm based in Pune, using 22 karat gold.
Asked
if the shirt is going to be his permanent possession, Phuge replied in
the affirmative and said: “Yes I am going to keep it with me till I am
alive”.
Despite
being a finance professional now, Phuge has an ambition of becoming a
Member of Parliament (MP) someday in the future. “If NCP fields me as a
candidate in the forthcoming Lok Sabha poll from Shirur constituency in
Pune district, I am more than willing to contest,” Phuge said in a
matter-of-fact manner.
It
was Wanjale who incidentally came to be known as the first-ever gold
man of Pune. However, after the untimely demise of the “original” gold
man in June last year, Moze sought to replace Wanjale and earn the
sobriquet of being the new “gold man” of Pune.
Reacting
to the golden shirt that Phuge has stitched for himself, ruling
Nationalist Congress Party, NCP’s Pune-based spokesperson Ankush Kakade
said: “Datta Phuge is not an active worker of the NCP. Yes. His wife
Seema Phuge is an NCP corporator. Our party does not approve of the
vulgar display of wealth as being done by Datta Phuge. It is his
personal matter. The NCP has nothing to do with it”. [GN]
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