In Kolkata, 65-year-old man installs wife’s silicone statue after Covid snatches her away | Kolkata News – Times of India

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KOLKATA: Madame Tuss-aud’s has Mahatma Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar. Kolkata’s own Mother’s Wax Museum has Rabindranath Tagore and Shah Rukh and Salman Khan. Kaikhali’s Tapas Sandilya has got a silicone statue made of his wife, Indrani, whom Covid snatched away during the pandemic’s sec-ond wave.
Built at a cost of Rs 2.5 lakh, the statue – surprisingly lifelike – is seated on a sofa at Indrani’s favourite spot at their VIP Road home. The labour of love, which draws curious neighbours and the occasional visitor from outside the locality, has made the 65-year-old Tapas – a retired central government employee – something of a talking point in the middle-class, largely Bengali neighbourhood.

man installs wife statue

Tapas, however, dismisses any talk of an “attention-grabbing” exercise. “I am, strictly speaking, fulfilling my wife’s abiding wish,” he says, before describing how what may seem to be an idiosyncrasy to others has come to be.

man installs wife statue

“We visited the Iskcon temple in Mayapur a decade ago and could not stop admiring the lifelike statue of the order’s founder, AC Bhaktivedanta Swami. It was then Indrani had told me of her desire for a similar statue (of hers) if she happened to pass away before me,” he recalls.
‘Family opposed the idea, but finally gave in’
Kaikhali’s Tapas Sandilya, who lost his wife Indrani to Covid during the pandemic’s second wave, has installed a silicone statue of her at his VIP Road home. “My wife died on May 4, 2021, and I just wanted to fulfil her wish,” he said, bemused at the attention the statue – and the visitors their home, called Swapnatuku – have drawn.

man installs wife statue

Tapas began his search on the internet for someone who could make his dream come true a few months after Indrani’s death. He zeroed in on sculptor Subimal Das in the beginning of 2022.
Das (46), who mostly makes silicone replicas for museums, called this one of his most challenging projects. “It was absolutely necessary for the statue to have a realistic facial expression,” he said, explaining why the job took him over six months. Photographs of Indrani’s face from different angles were collected as “initial data”, and, first, a clay model was made; this formed the basis of the fibre moulding and the silicone casting.

man installs wife statue

“I had to work with Subimal for the clay-moulding phase as nothing less than Indrani’s actual facial expression would do for me. I, after all, lived with her for 39 years,” Tapas said. He recalled how he went to a Barasat tailor several times. “My wife would always get her clothes done by him and he knew the exact measurements,” Tapas said. “Everything had to be a perfect fit.”
The statue weighs about 30kg and wears the gold jewellery that was Indrani’s favourite when she was alive. It is also clad in a silk sari from Assam, which she wore at her son’s wedding reception.
A silicone sculpture is much easier to maintain than a wax statue, though the latter can be more “realistic”, said sculptors. A life-like silicone sculpture can cost anything between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, depending on several factors. The colour pigmentation process, the hair-grafting and the placement of the eyes are critical factors, Das explained.
“The grafting of hair took almost a month to complete. Tapas babu also wanted a few grey streaks to make the statue look like-life,” he added.
Tapas admitted to encountering some opposition to his “dream project”. “My family was strictly opposed to the idea of installing such a life-like sculpture, but gave in. Some of my relatives and neighbours helped,” he said.
“If we can keep framed photographs at home after someone’s death, why not a statue?” he asked.
The statue has not been able to mitigate the pain of his loss and how it came about: “I was in isolation at home while Indrani was taken to a hospital in south Kolkata. I can never forget that.” But the 30kg installation gives the feeling that “she is always with me”, he said.
“I will live with that.”

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