He initially thought of buying an elephant for his ancestral house Perinkulam Agraharam at Alathur here.
But taking into account the huge investment required and the difficulty in maintaining an elephant, P.R. Rajagopalan decided to install an elephant sculpture in his courtyard instead. He approached sculptor Madhavan Nair of Mangalamkunnu to get an elephant sculpted.
Made in 15 days
Mr. Madhavan Nair, then a teacher at Sreekrishnapuram High School, took barely 15 days to make a 9.5-metre-tall elephant sculpture. Now, the sculpture has been adjudged the largest of its kind to occupy a private residence.
After the Limca Book of Records and the Asia Book of Records, the sculpture has entered the India Book of Records. Mr. Rajagoplan received a communication in this regard on Monday.
In his eighties, Mr. Madhavan Nair is famous for sculpting elephants. Known as ‘Gaja Shilpi’ for the life-size concrete elephants he makes for various institutions across the State, Mr. Madhavan Nair made the life-size statue.
“The artist in Mr. Madhavan Nair fell in love with elephants at an early age when he moulded small elephants out of paper pulp. The demand for his elephant images grew, and he decided to make a full-size elephant in concrete,” says Mr. Rajagoplan.
The elephant sculpture at Perinkulam now has many admirers, who throng the agraharam on almost all days.
