Resurrecting business, in Kolkata, of course

When Rajiv Gandhi described Kolkata in the 80s as a 'dying city', there was enough pushback from its citizens to raise the dead. Zombie or not, the city is home to one sculptor-entrepreneur who has created a new market, and is tapping it: hyper-memorials of dead loved ones. Why settle for framed photos - or a stone monument to a British lady who passed away 125 yrs ago - when you can have a full-size silicone-clay-fibreglass simulacrum of 'kaka' smiling from the sofa, forever poised to ask why you never became a doctor?

Subimal Das has cracked a new sub-industry in the City of Nostalgia by selling life-size - and life-like - statues of the close departed. While everyone else is busy making statues of celebrities, politicians, cultural icons, etc, Das is selling the option that makes death part of a decor choice. The products are no tacky sub-Madame Tussaud waxworks. They are striking simulacra far removed from the sort of stuff you associate with Norman Bates and his mum in Psycho. Families commission these hyper-realistic replicas, and Das' workshop provides them their 'loved one' for some ₹2.5 lakh. Creepy? Absolutely. Visionary? Without question. In a world where grief is commodified and memory is moulded, Das has birthed the ultimate startup that's a mix of taxidermy and the ancient Egyptian industry of mummification: a resurrection economy.