But the party’s not over for Lalu Prasad Yadav’s admirers. Not by a long shot. After students from Harvard University came down to meet the railways minister, a group of artists has now put up an exhibition of art inspired by “origins and paradigm shift on the image of Lalu Prasad”.

The exhibit is on at Triveni Kala Sangam’s Apparao Galleries.

Sources in the Ministry of Railways say Yadav hasn’t visited the exhibition so far but may want to check it out “soon”.

Titled ‘Dust To Dust’, the exhibition is a group show of mixed-media works by 12 artists. It has paintings, photographs and installations that glorify Yadav as well as criticise him.

“I always wanted to do an exhibition on a personality, preferably a politician. Lalu is one of the few politicians who has that charisma, that halo, I was looking for,” says Sharan Apparao, the curator of Apparao Galleries. “He is hated by some, but his work merits attention, such as taking Indian Railways from a loss-making venture to earning a profit of crores.”

At the entrance, visitors have to pay their obeisance at ‘Lalu Mandir’. Created by Ram Rahman, this is a small, metallic temple usually seen in Hindu homes. But the unusual lies inside: L K Advani is being pulled out of his ‘rath’ by a movable cut-out of Lalu Yadav mounted on a grazing cow, whose legs flex when the lever attached to a key is pulled.

“This depicts the scene when Advani undertook his rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya and Lalu barred his entry into Bihar,” Rahman says. He says the minister’s “guts” inspired him to make the installation. “To stand up to man of Advani’s stature was unthinkable then. I have only respect, no disdain for Lalu.”

And Yadav’s popular among non-Indians, too. Werner Dornik, an Austrian photographer travelling to India since 1977, says: “I had tea in clay cups (kulhars) in trains then. But plastic cups replaced them over the years — they (plastics) litter tracks and damage the environment.

“But three or four years back, while on another train journey, I was excited to see the return of clay cups. On enquiring, I came to know that a new railway minister has effected this change.