The city will soon witness the installation of another statue of thespian Dr Rajkumar, making it one of the many structures dedicated to the legend who has enamoured millions of fans over many years.
The bronze statue which will be placed inside a stone chariot that replicates the one in Hampi will be installed at Kurbarahalli Circle in Nandini Layout. Area Corporator Nagaraj along with Chalukya Yuvakara Sangha will be installing the statue.
The corporator took the initiative along with a few youngsters who contributed an initial sum of ` 1.5 lakh for the project.
“An actor like Dr Rajkumar is irreplaceable. He has done a lot to take the Kannada film industry forward. We wanted to give something in return. The idea of having a chariot came during the Hampi festival. We identified the sculptors from Mysore,” said Nagaraj. Speaking about the sculptors of the chariot, he said, “Umapathi, son of National awardee Shilpi S Narasimahcar, along with sculptors Vinod and Prakash from Mysore went and studied about the chariot. They took almost three-and-a-half years to complete and assemble the chariot.”
The bronze statue in his Mayura (the film) avatar was sculpted by DC Shivakumar who resides in Bangalore. “Annavaru looks very handsome in this particular film. So we decided to go with it. Mayura was the only film shot inside Mysore Palace. Shivakumar watched the film a number of times to study the gesture and facial expressions. He took nearly two years to complete the statue,” said Nagaraj.
The entire sculpture (Statue and the chariot) costed them `1.30 crore. “We got donations from various sectors including BBMP who donated around `25 lakhs towards this installation.
Narayan Gowda of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, director S Narayan and many other film personalities have taken initiative towards this project and they are all looking forward to February 8, the day the statue will be installed. We have in fact planned to have a grand function on the lines of Ambi Sambrama that happened in 2012,” revealed Nagaraj.
The stone chariot weighs around 45 tonnes and is 14 ft while the statue is around 10 ft in height. The chariot is made out of black stone picked up from HD Kote and they had a reason to install it particularly at Kurubarahalli circle. “Not many are aware that lot of freedom fighters resided and still live in this area. Also it is close to Annavara samadhi. Whoever visits the samadhi will also come to see the statue. That’s one of the reasons, we decided to install at Nandini Layout.
As of now, Rajkumar’s sons, Shivarajkumar and Puneeth Rajkumar have seen the chariot and the statue. “Raghavendra Rajkumar will be seeing it in a day or two. Paravathamma Rajkumar will be seeing it on the day of the inauguration,” said Nagaraj.