Jyoti Basu, the CPM patriarch, is now ill, recuperating at a Salt Lake hospital. He is a tall leader, the tallest among the India’s communists thus far some would argue.
He has just completed 95 years (born in 1914), and the remarkable thing is that he still has very good memory. When the finance minister of India rang him up on his birthday, Jyoti Basu surprised him by mentioning about the general budget that the FM had just submitted in the parliament.
Upon his illness people from the upper echelons of life, those who wield power are coming to see him and wish him well. That is something quite natural.
Yesterday though a visitor came calling who incidentally is 2 years older than Jyoti Basu. He is the bodybuilder Manohar Aich (born in 1912).
Manohar Aich is short, 5 feet, but retains an excellent physique. He continues to train for 90 minutes at his own gym, called what else but Studio de Physique in Kolkata.
This is what the Telegraph has to say about Aich’s visit to Jyoti Basu yesterday:
A 97-year-old came to wish 95-year-old Jyoti Basu well in hospital on Tuesday. Manohar Aich, who became Mr. Universe the year Basu would have voted for the first time in a general election (1952), flaunted his wrinkled but rippling muscles.
Here are 2 recent pictures of both the legends.
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