Kerala artiste sets up wax museum in Maharashtra

LONAVALA - Even as wax figures have become a synonym of Madame Tussauds across the world, a wax museum has been set up in the Lonavala city of Maharashtra by an Indian artiste to recreate the magic of wax images here.

Set up by sculptor Sunil Kandallor, 38, of Kerala, this museum has undoubtedly come as an inspiration from Madame Tussauds.

Inaugurated only recently, the museum presently features wax figures of 15 famous personalities including late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, late Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, late King of Pop Michael Jackson, former German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, and Academy Award winner Rasool Pookutty.

Kandallor tells that he started sculpting in Kerala by creating a wax statue of Lord Krishna. I started wax modeling around 12 years ago. I have one museum in Kerala and one Tamil Nadu and this is the third one. We have 15 models in this museum. We have models of Rasool Pookutty, Rajiv Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Benazir Bhutto, etc. over here. We are now thinking of expanding the museum and adding maximum number of models over here,” said Kandallor.e added that while the eyes of the figures have been made of glass and chemicals but for the eyebrows, hair, and eyelashes hair of human beings have been used.

People visiting this museum said that the wax replicas at the museum look quite real and that the museum deserves to be promoted.

“This museum is outstanding, as we didn’t have a museum like this in India. This museum will make India proud. The visitors’ crowd will go up, as more and more people will come to know about it,” said Rohit, a visitor.

In near future, Kandallor wants to sculpt images of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and former Miss World and Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai. By Shivaji (ANI)