Shrinivas Gupta, a well-known entrepreneur in Koppal, on Monday grabbed public attention not only for organising an extravagant house-warming ceremony at his newly built luxury villa but also for installing a wax statue of his deceased wife to symbolically recreate her presence.
After his wife died in a road accident in July 2017, Mr. Gupta went ahead with his plan of constructing a luxury house, designed to match his wife’s taste. When the construction was over and the structure ready to be moved in, a grand grahapravesha was planned. To make up for the absence of his wife during the ceremony, Mr. Gupta planned to get a colourful statue of his wife created for the occasion so that he, along with his children, could recreate the feeling of being with his wife during the important ceremony.
In his efforts to translate his plan into reality, Mr. Gupta, an international hair trader, searched extensively on the Internet, used all his contacts and made visits to several places to find someone who could give physical shape to his idea and finally found one in Bengaluru. The sculptor created the statue using rubber, silicon, wax and other materials, and the output was satisfactory for his customer.
As planned, the statue in pink saree was placed on a sofa in the newly built house and Mr. Gupta affectionately sat beside it for a while. His two daughters stood on either side of the couple to make it a perfect family image.
While the statue turned heads at the house-warming ceremony, Mr. Gupta’s love for his wife received special admiration.
Refusing to disclose the cost incurred for making the statue, Mr. Gupta simply said that it could not be valued in terms of money.
“I have done what I could with the energy that god gave me. If I had the power to infuse life, I wouldn’t have wasted a single moment. Please don’t ask the cost incurred for getting it done. We cannot value the memories of my beloved wife. Through this statue, I felt that I had seen her again,” he said.