Mysuru: The city that boasts of many firsts can once again hold its head high, as it will be the first in the country to install the life-size statue of the Mystic and Yogi Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa at a public place.
The statue installed at the Ramakrishnanagar Circle last evening will be unveiled once Chief Minister Siddharamaiah fixes a date. “The CM will be in the city tomorrow and I will hold a discussion with him in this regard and fix a date at the earliest,” said MUDA Chairman D. Dhruvakumar, speaking to Star of Mysore here yesterday.
Workers installing the marble statue of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa at Ramakrishnanagar Circle in city last evening.
A crane was used to install the statue, sculpted by Arun Yogiraj, on a two feet high and ten feet wide lotus pedestal, at the Circle. The sculpture in a sitting posture is eight feet high. It is now covered with plastic awaiting the unveiling.
“This is the first statue of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa to be installed in a public place in the country,” said sculptor Arun Yogiraj.
The statue was commissioned by MUDA at a cost of around Rs. 45 lakh. Another Rs. 3.55 crore has been spent to develop the Ramakrishnanagar Circle on the lines of K.R. Circle.
The statue covered with plastic, even as the golden dome glistens in the dusky evening sky as the backdrop.
The milky-white 36-tonne marble was imported from Rajasthan and including sculptor Arun Yogiraj, the others who worked on the statue included Cheluvaraj, Siddaraju, Somanna, Chandru, Jagadish, Nagaraj, Shivashankar and Mariswamy. They worked on it day and night for nine months at Kashyapa Brahma Shilpakala School premises in Thonachikoppal. Chipping away at the marble, the weight came down from 36 tonnes to 16 tonnes by the time the sculpture was finished.
I feel that the statue couls have been in a different enclousure to the one present. This one is similar to the Mysore Maharajas Statue enclousure.\To make it a little different in line with ramakrishna ashram architecture would have been apt.
Though Statues are not advisable since they become an eyesore all thru out the year with cleaning done on jayanti day.