A Tendulkar statue was inaugurated on Tuesday at the new state-of-art gallery, an initiative by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Sahara.However, this wasn’t an easy task for sculptor Susanta Ray.
When he was told to make a wax statue of Sachin Tendulkar for the newly-inaugurated World Cup Cricket Gallery at Shahaji Raje Krida Sankul, Andheri Sports Complex, he didn’t give up.
Unlike Madame Tussaud’s team, he didn’t get the exact measurements of Tendulkar’s body to work on the replica. He had to depend on Internet, through which he developed a rough idea before heading on with the task.
“It was difficult since I didn’t have the measurements. I’ve never met him. I relied on the Internet and other stuff to bring this to life,” Ray was quoted in DNA.
When one looks at the replica, it looks as much as the original, a bat in a hand and a helmet in the other.
All this doesn’t stop him from making more replicas of Tendulkar. Ray says that he will present the Master Blaster after he scores his 100th ton.
“I hope he does it soon. I want to gift it to him as soon as he achieves the milestone,” Ray said as he stood at one side watching visitors admire his hard work.
Previously he had made sculptures of Sourav Ganguly, Ronaldinho and Rabindranath Tagore. He has even presented Diego Maradona a replica of the legend himself, when he had visited Kolkata.
“It looks so real. Susanta has done a good job. It is better than the one at Madame Tussauds,” Aditya Thackeray, the chief of Yuva Sena and the son of Uddhav Thackeray, who was looking after the construction of the art gallery.