Chennai’s marina beach in Besant nagar saw a great buzz of activity on saturday, with beachgoers stopping by to see the faces of their favourite film stars taking shape on the beach sand. Popular sand sculptor Sudarsan Pattnaik, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2014, was in chennai to create a sand sculpture in honour of kollywood stars. Faces of ‘Superstar’ rajinikanth, ‘Thala' ajith and ‘Thalapathy’ vijay carved under a tent set up on the beach were the main attractions.
Meanwhile Sudarsan began working on the sculptures early on saturday morning and completed them by 4.30 pm the same day. When speaking to reporters, the artist said, “It is a great honour to be doing it here. My second favourite beach is marina in Chennai. Apparently the tamil film industry holds an important place in indian cinema and this is my tribute to the industry.” Sudarsan, who has been to marina beach quite a few times, shares that it was his first time sculpting kollywood stars.
Moreover hailing from Odisha, the artist has won several international awards for his sand sculptures. In the international Scorrano Sand Nativity event held in Lecce, italy from november 13 to 17, Sudarsan became the first indian to win the Italian Sand Art Award. Perhaps the concept was part of a curtain-raiser planned by Zee tamil tv channel ahead of its very first Zee Cine Awards tamil and the awards will be presented under different categories, selected by a panel of juries and the channel will also allow viewers to vote for their favourite stars.
