Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan sat next to his wax statue, as directed by its sculptor Sunil Kandalloor, with a deadpan expression at the Mascot convention centre here on Saturday.
“You should judge it,” was the response when asked to comment on the just-unveiled sculpture. When the photographers, furiously capturing the subject and the sculpture, said the model had come good, he opened up. “Since you say that the statue is good, I am also of the same opinion,” he said.
The wax sculpture will be part of the Kochi branch of the Celebrity Wax Museum of Mr. Kandalloor that will be inaugurated next week at Oberon Mall in that city. The main museum, at Lonavala near Pune, has 50 wax models of national and international celebrities and leaders.
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The self-taught artist had to wait for long to get the wax model of Mr. Achuthanandan in his museum. There was a delay in taking the CPI(M) veteran’s physical measurements. The three-dimensional scans and measurements were taken only two months ago. From then, work progressed fast.
Mr. Kandalloor had set up a museum with 24 life-size wax models of popular figures from the field of arts, sports, religion and politics at the Bay Watch water-theme park in Kanyakumari in 2005. Another museum was then set up in Thekkady.
The museum in Pune was opened after the other two were closed down.
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