|
An Indian man has been making news headlines for honoring his late
wife’s wish to build a life-size statue of her so they can still be
together.
Tapas Sandilya, a retired government employee from India’s West Bengal,
lost his wife of 39 years in 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Indrani
was taken to the hospital while he was forced into isolation, so he
couldn’t be by her side when she passed away. Determined to at least
fulfill one of his wife’s final wishes, Tapas started looking for an
artist that could create a lifelike silicone statue of Indrani, and
spent 6 months and around $3,000 on the unusual project.
|
|
 |
|
“We visited the Iskcon temple in Mayapur a decade ago and could not stop
admiring the lifelike statue of the order’s founder AC Bhaktivedanta
Swami,” Tapas Sandilya told The Times of India. “It was then Indrani had
me of her desire for a similar statue if she happened to pass away
before me.”
Last year, Sandilya found a sculptor willing to work on the life-size
silicone model of his late wife, and spent days working with him on a
clay cast that would later become the base of the silicone casting. The
65-year-old made sure that the model came out to his liking, insisting
that nothing less than Indrani’s actual facial expression would do for
him.
In the end, the sculptor came through, and a 30-kg silicone model of
Indrani dressed in an Assamese silk sari that the woman had worn at her
son’s wedding reception is now permanently seated on a swing, her
favorite place in the family home.
|
|
|
|
“My family was strictly opposed to the idea of installing such a
life-like sculpture but gave in. Some of my relatives and neighbors
helped,” Tapas told Indian reporters. “If we can keep framed photographs
at home after someone’s death, why not a statue?”
|