Shah Alam emigrated to the United States in 2007 in search of a better life and to be closer to his daughter. I didn’t imagine that a banana that cost cents could be sold for millions
A few meters from Sotheby’s on the Upper East Side, in New York, which sells millions of dollars in works of art, is the modest grocery store in Shah Alam, which sold a banana for pennies that would be auctioned for more than six million. The story is told by The New York Times, which spoke to the seller and also to the millionaire who purchased the one glued to a wall.
“I’m a poor man,” lamented Shah Alam, 74, in tears. “I’ve never had that kind of money, I’ve never seen that kind of money,” said the Bangladeshi immigrant.
The euphoria surrounding the work of art is incomprehensible to the dealer. Days after the million-dollar sale, his stall became an obligatory stopping point. “What kind of people are those who bought the banana?”, he asked. “Don’t they know what a banana is?”
To , Chinese businessman Justin Sun, who won the auction for the sale of the banana, says that he was moved by Shah Alam’s response and that his role in the work of art “is not taken lightly”.
The dream of a better life led the widowed Bengali immigrant to leave his homeland for the United States in 2007. However, the reality he found was very different from what he imagined. He currently shares a basement apartment in the Bronx with five other men and pays around $500 for the room. He works 12 hours a day, four days a week. One of his children, more precisely his daughter, lives on Long Island.
With his vision severely compromised and with cataract surgery scheduled for January of next year, the dealer is unable to appreciate art up close.
