Bhubaneswar: While Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the Statue of Unity on Wednesday as a tribute to freedom fighter Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 143rd birth anniversary, a miniature artist from Odisha has created a 3.5 inches replica of it.
L Eswar Rao, a miniature artist from Jatni village in Khurda district, has sculpted a tiny statue of Sardar Patel from a soap in a bottle. “I took me three days to complete the sculpture and it is a tribute to the Iron Man of India in whatever little way from my end,” he said.
Having been practising this art form since last 25 years, Rao is quite polished and also renowned for it. He creates miniature art on pencil nib and soap and presents them in a bottle.
His journey as a miniature artist began in 1999, when he gifted Taj Mahal carved out of a chalk to his teacher. “I had been doing it since I was in Class II. It was in my Plus II years that I finally gifted it to someone. My teacher then introduced me to the then principal of B K College of Arts,” he said.
The principal then recommended that he enrolls at the State Institute of Handicraft at Gandamunda. He then took training in stone carving for four years, from 2002 to 2006.
“I started working as a professional and would get orders for stone carving. Everything was okay until the pay started decreasing. No one was ready to pay for my hard work and my family members were frustrated as well. It was a matter of prestige for them and they asked me there and then to stop the work,” he said.
In 2011, he had no work. He started his own foundation ‘Eswar Art and Craft Social Foundation’ where he started training children for free while continuing with the miniature art. The 36-year-old artist has a museum of his own with his personal works on display.
“I don’t want to sell my work because for me, they are priceless and no one is ready to appreciate the hard work and pay me well. I have started training little kids for free and since it is a registered foundation, we work our way in terms of finance,” he added.
