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123ft letter for Hillary

Tamanna Khan
Yesterday was the 67th birthday of Hillary Rodham Clinton, former first lady and secretary of state of the United States.
FROM PAGE 1
The arrangements made to observe the occasion in a small classroom of Green Art Academy in the capital's North Dhanmondi - almost 11,000km away from Hillary's country - were simple: a cake and two flower bouquets surrounded by a few well-wishers, none of whom were even remotely related to or known to Hillary.
They gathered there to celebrate the occasion with artist Mintu Dey, 35, who has been writing a letter to Hillary since April 2000.
Displaying parts of the 123-foot-long letter, Mintu told The Daily Star what had inspired him to get into this venture.
"While I was studying honours at the Institute of Fine Arts under Khulna University, I wanted to do something different," said the freelance artist who also runs the Green Art Academy along with a few friends.
"I started off with a plan to make the world's largest painting, but at one point it turned out to be too costly. So I changed my focus towards miniature art."
This thought led him to pick Hillary as his subject because back then in 2000 she was the first lady of the US.
While researching on Hillary, his
interest grew and around April that year he began writing her letters on 15.5-inche-wide papers.
At first, the pages were separate but then he came up with the idea of joining them with drawings on scenery and landscapes of Bangladesh.
Now, there are 31 such drawings and on the margin of the letter Hillary's name has been written 10,388 times in tiny letters.
The letter invites Hillary to Mintu's home in Khulna's Digholia upazila. He describes not only the tiniest detail of his home but also his day-to-day thoughts, including those on Hillary and what her reaction would be if she saw his home and so on.
Mintu never saw this woman who is considered one of the most powerful and influential in the world. He did get a chance to meet her when Hillary came to visit Bangladesh in 2012 as the US secretary of state. "Seven people were supposed to meet him. But she only had time to meet six and I was unfortunately the seventh," he said with a sad tone in his voice.
The letter is not the only thing Mintu has for Hilary. He is also composing a micro-miniature version (Txl.5") of Hillary's book "Living History". He has also done a portrait of
Hillary with her name on a mustard seed.
His miniatures include a 1"X1.5" Tagore's Geetanjali, a 0.5mm diameter Agnibina of Kazi Nazrul Islam and a Mona Lisa, among others.
Mintu claimed that he had done all this without the help of any specialised equipment.
"I only used a magnifying glass to check the work," he said.
However, he could not yet exhibit his micro-miniature work. "It would be very costly because for each work I have to make a glass case and provide magnifying equipment for the spectators to look at the artwork."
His paintings and watercolours, though, were exhibited in 2008 and 2014 in Dhaka. Since miniatures are not widely known in the country, he has not yet met any collectors interested in this art form, Mintu said.
He has written several times to the Guinness Book of World Records about his miniatures but was yet to get a positive response since they do not have a category on miniature art.
"1 wish to give the letter to Hillary in person. I wish she would call me and ask about the letter. I also wish she would come to my place to collect it," he said.