The picturesque village of Kaitharam, near North Paravur, is heralding the season in a unique way — by making a colossal Santa Claus.
Standing 63-foot-high, 46-foot-wide and weighing in at 700 kg, this Santa is big enough to fit dozens of children on his lap. The iron-frame and cloth figure, created by a group of 30 local artists as part of a friendship initiative, is now staking the claim of being the tallest such Santa in the world.
“We set out with the aim to break the world record for the biggest Santa statue in the world, currently held by a 52-foot statue created in 1997 in Singapore’’, said A.S. Mahidharan, a 49-year-old artist who curated the work. It took the artists about three weeks to finish the work and the cost of construction is estimated at Rs.1 lakh. “We had been camping at the venue for over three weeks now and worked on a round-the-clock basis to complete this before the New Year’’, he said. The 38-foot walking stick held by the statue carries New Year greetings in 80 languages including Malayalam and Hindi, in addition to French, Spanish and German and others.
The venue, where the statue has been erected, has already become a beehive of activity with people from far away places, including foreign tourists, dropping in to witness the giant model. The organisers have informed the Limca Book of Records authorities about the feat and they have agreed to visit it within the next couple of days. Having unveiled the statue on the New Year eve, the artists have decided to dedicate their creation to world peace in these troubled times. “Peace is the only battle worth waging. We must give peace a chance”, they said.
