Hi blog.
I know I’ve been away from you for a really long time – more than 6 weeks!
It’s been a hectic time. First, the two weddings. Then the travelling and looooong days. I just wanted to sleep whatever little time I got.
And the few times that I really sat to write, my fingers just started writing about two incidents of January that I really do not wish to write about here – the demise of a young person I had met just a week before her accident, and an incident that I witnessed while on a tour in Rajasthan.
It took me a while to bury them somewhere deep in my system.
Anyway, we keep going to Pune and Lonavla very often, and pass by the Celebrity Wax Museum at Varsoli.
A fortnight ago, on a whim, my wife and I decided to step in – and were bowled over by what we saw. Real, life-like wax sculptures of various celebrities - Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Satya Sai Baba, Babasaheb Ambedkar and so many others.
The scultpture of Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is so life-like that for a moment, I felt she would get up and hug me in that famous embrace of hers. And A.R. Rahman with his Oscars...
My wife had a ball getting herself photographed with Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussain and Micheal Jackson!
It is a very small museum – one can go through in less than 15 minutes. At Rs.75 per entry, possibly one might call it a bit expensive. And some of the sculptures are possibly not 100% accurate (e.g. of Shivaji Maharaj; though on the whole they are definitely very good). But when you bear in mind that all this is the work of just one young man – Sunil - and he did not have access to any of these celebrities – with the microscopically precise 3D measurements that people give to Madame Tussauds, I could not help but doff my hat to his skills.
Am going to try and post some pictures on my facebook page, as well as here. And I would urge you to go to the museum once, if only to encourage such artists. It is not very far from Lonavla – if you are going from Mumbai, just cross Lonavla on the Expressway and get down at the other (Pune) end on NH4 (the old highway). Puneris can get down onto the old highway just before Lonavla, at Balaji Restaurant.
The wax museum is just about 300 meters on the right side, before the NH4 toll gate.
(And no, Sunil has not paid me to write this. Nor does he know that I am writing it :-))
My wife at Saddam Hussain's trial
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
The sculptor with his daughter
I know I’ve been away from you for a really long time – more than 6 weeks!
It’s been a hectic time. First, the two weddings. Then the travelling and looooong days. I just wanted to sleep whatever little time I got.
And the few times that I really sat to write, my fingers just started writing about two incidents of January that I really do not wish to write about here – the demise of a young person I had met just a week before her accident, and an incident that I witnessed while on a tour in Rajasthan.
It took me a while to bury them somewhere deep in my system.
Anyway, we keep going to Pune and Lonavla very often, and pass by the Celebrity Wax Museum at Varsoli.
A fortnight ago, on a whim, my wife and I decided to step in – and were bowled over by what we saw. Real, life-like wax sculptures of various celebrities - Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Satya Sai Baba, Babasaheb Ambedkar and so many others.
The scultpture of Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is so life-like that for a moment, I felt she would get up and hug me in that famous embrace of hers. And A.R. Rahman with his Oscars...
My wife had a ball getting herself photographed with Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussain and Micheal Jackson!
It is a very small museum – one can go through in less than 15 minutes. At Rs.75 per entry, possibly one might call it a bit expensive. And some of the sculptures are possibly not 100% accurate (e.g. of Shivaji Maharaj; though on the whole they are definitely very good). But when you bear in mind that all this is the work of just one young man – Sunil - and he did not have access to any of these celebrities – with the microscopically precise 3D measurements that people give to Madame Tussauds, I could not help but doff my hat to his skills.
Am going to try and post some pictures on my facebook page, as well as here. And I would urge you to go to the museum once, if only to encourage such artists. It is not very far from Lonavla – if you are going from Mumbai, just cross Lonavla on the Expressway and get down at the other (Pune) end on NH4 (the old highway). Puneris can get down onto the old highway just before Lonavla, at Balaji Restaurant.
The wax museum is just about 300 meters on the right side, before the NH4 toll gate.
(And no, Sunil has not paid me to write this. Nor does he know that I am writing it :-))
My wife at Saddam Hussain's trial
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
The sculptor with his daughter
