Thiruvananthapuram: A life-size bronze statue of CMP leader M. V. Raghavan is all set to adorn the premises of MVR Cancer Centre and Research Institute in Kozhikode. The 10-feet long bronze statue has been sculpted by V. Mahendran in front of his home at Vellayambalam in the capital and is ready to be transported. It is MVR’s protégé C. N. Vijayakrishnan who evinced keen interest in having a statue erected at the MVRCCRI. Sources said MVR's family members are in the dark on the matter.
The work was assigned to the 63-year-old Thiruvananthapuram native by an intermediary of Vijayakr-ishnan, chairman of MVRCCRI and the Calicut City Service Co-operative Bank.
Though he has not gone on the finer details of MVR, the firebrand leaders’ ruggedness has been remarkably etched. Though Mr Mahendran has sculpted scores of statues, he admitted to DC that he has always been a ‘ghost sculptor’ except twice.
The statue of K. Karunakaran in Thrissur was the first one to be unveiled in his name and now the second one will be launched later this month at MVRCCRI by senior Congress Working Committee member A. K. Antony.
“The statue of MVR weighs 1300 kilo, and a crane would have to lift it to the lorry. I am a fourth generation sculptor who has never got any training other than what I traditionally received from my late father, K. Vasudevan. It has taken more than four and a half months time to complete the process from making the clay structure, moulding and casting,” he told DC.
Though he does not have a proper work space in front of his rented home, he still managed to complete the work.
Summer rains shying away came as a blessing in disguise as the casting of statue dried up easily, he said.
The rift in the late leader’s family had come into the open during the 2016 Assembly elections, following his demise, over the control of the Pappinisseri Visha Chikilsa Society and various institutions he established under it.
