Meet The Bhubaneswar Phillumenist With An ‘Unmatched’ Collection

Bhubaneswar: While most of her school friends went for conventional hobbies like singing, dancing, painting, and collecting stamps and coins, Suparna Surabhita Das did something different. She started collecting matchboxes, a rare hobby in Odisha.

“At Sri Aurobindo School in Banki, where I study, my friends were into collecting handicrafts and coins. But my father inspired me to collect matchboxes,” said Suparna.

She was in Class III when she took up the hobby and today boasts of a collection of 7,000 matchboxes and matchbox covers.

“When I was in Class III, I just started collecting matchboxes, but I didn’t know how to categorise them. Later, I categorised all them by the names of films, flowers, gods, advertisements and many more. My father also helped me a lot in this,” said Suparna.

“In some places, matchboxes are also known as matchbooks. It is like a small file and contains very few match sticks. Along with matchboxes, I have also collected many match books,

“Apart from other Indian states, I have also collected matchboxes from Israel, Indonesia, Malaysia, Czech Republic, Seoul, German, Korea, etc. Now, I am exchanging them with collections from other countries. We have many phillumenist groups on social media and we exchange our collections with each other,” she added.

Besides matchboxes, Suparna has also collected antique pieces like bronze items and tribal jewellries and pothies. “I am also collecting different types of locks, Sera Mana, tribal jwelleries, etc,” she said.

Suparna did her masters in Urban Planning from IIT Roorkee and Bachelors in architecture from CET, Bhubaneswar. Now she is the Assistant Town Planner in Bhubaneswar Development Authority.

The art of phillumeny is not known to many. Exhibitions should be organised, so that people can know about it. Like a stamp or a coin, every matchbox also tells a story,” Suparna said .

“I want to hold an exhibition with my matchboxes collections. In the State Museum in Bhubaneswar, there is a fixed date, when you can exhibit your collected items. I am planning to do that,” she added.

She also has an interest in paintings. “If you will not work on your creativity, then life will be colourless. That is why I used to draw something every day,” she said.

“Uses of matchboxes have been decreasing now days, as people are using lighter, inverter and generator. It is a problem for us to collect the matchboxes. We don’t have much varieties now days like before. People are also selling duplicate matchboxes,” she said.

Young masses should come to revive the old matchboxes, so that people can see its evolution, she said.