Meet L Eshwar Rao, The Sculptor Who Makes Green Ganesha

Bhubaneswar: Creativity ushered in with spirituality is what makes artists go the extra mile in designing their favourite Gods. Meet L Eshwar Rao, who has designed a Ganesha idol out of 320 Tamarind seeds. The eco-friendly idol is 8 inches tall and it took him 15 days to complete the entire structure.

“Other than the seeds, I have used matchsticks for lining, glass for the base, glue for pasting and absolutely nothing else,” said the 37-year-old sculptor, who hasn’t learnt the craft from anyone and believes it to be ‘God-gifted’.

Rao hails from Gopinathpur in Jatni, and has been making idols out of almost everything he could lay his hand on – wood, pencil, rice grain, haldi, rubber and even lead batteries!

He is known for his miniature idols in bottles because of which the locals address him as ‘bottle-bhitara karigara’.

Rao doesn’t sell his work and has a personal museum at home displaying them. This time, he is holding an exhibition showcasing Ganesha idols created by him over the last 15 years.

He has been working on such pieces for the last 25 years and has won numerous awards for the same. “I want to take this art form forward,” he said, and hoped that the state government supports him in his endeavor.