Mysuru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will unveil the statue of the late scion of the Mysuru royal family, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar at the Hardinge Circle here to mark his birth anniversary on Sunday.
The Hardinge Circle will be renamed Jayachamarajendra Circle on the occasion by the Mysuru City Corporation, according to its Superintendent Engineer, Suresh Babu.
Unlike the two statues of the late maharajas, Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar and Chamaraja Wadiyar, which were made by sculptors from Mumbai and England, the new 10 ft tall statue was sculpted by a Mysurean, Arun Yogiraj Shilpi.
A fifth generation sculptor, Mr Arun Shilpi ,is an MBA holder and refused an offer from Infosys to continue his family tradition. His grandfather, B Basavanna Shilpi, had sculpted the Gayatridevi and Bhuvaneswari temples in the grounds of the Mysuru Palace besides the Radha Krishna temple in Brindavan Gardens.
The statue of the late scion weighs 28 tonnes and is placed on a five feet tall pedestal. It has been sculpted from white marble brought from Jaipur and took nine months to complete. Both the late maharaja’s widow, Pramodadevi Wadiyar and his successor, Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar have approved it, going by Mr Suresh Babu.
Interestingly Mr Yaduveer Wadiyar and his bride, Trishikha Kumari received a miniature of the podium of the Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar statue, from Mr R J Singh of Ramsons’ Prathishtaana, as a wedding gift recently.
