VIRUDHUNAGAR: This 45-year-old man's world is filled with miniatures of gold and silver. Meet Samuthiram (45) of Rajapalayam, a goldsmith and jeweller by profession for 25 years but a miniature artist at heart. A Commerce graduate, Samuthiram started making miniatures after being inspired by his late father who once made a miniature lathe machine in gold. Now, Samuthiram has as many as 15 gold and silver miniatures, including a one gram motorised gold fan, a torchlight that works with batteries and a charkha on his shelf.
The latest addition to his collection is a half-inch gold-gilded silver miniature of the athlete Neeraj Chopra, who struck gold in the Tokyo Olympics.
Samuthiram said that he has recreated the famous photograph of the athlete taken by photographer Aleksandra Szmigiel (Reuters), in 480 milligrams of silver which he then gilded with gold.
He said that his initial plan was to try and check if the miniature works with silver, and then to make it with gold. "However, the silver miniature was perfect, so I decided to go with that and polished it with gold. The miniature is exact, as in, it has the words India and his clothes and other factors. It took around eight hours to make it," he said.
Samuthiram has been into creating miniature works of art since 2003 and his motto is to put a Midas touch to any work he is undertaking. "Any skilled person can make a miniature. But I wanted to do something different and unique. As I am interested in Science and have a creative flair, I made a motorised fan with one gram of gold, which actually works and a torchlight with 250 milligrams of gold that works with batteries. I also made a mini Karthigai deepam, which can burn with oil and wick for a few seconds," he said.
His works include a silver helmet, cricket world cup, Indian national flag, Christmas tree and others.