Carving Out a New Life

Sculptures of Jyotirao Phule and Sai Baba at Sonavadekar Studio in Khar, Mumbai, wait to be relocated. The studio was founded in 1970 by Narayan Laxman Sonavadekar, who came from a traditional family of temple carvers in Maharashtra and was a professor of sculpture at Mumbai’s Sir JJ School of Arts. Over the years that he ran the studio, till his death in 2002, the studio garnered quite a reputation for making sculptures of freedom fighters, politicians and Hindu deities, including the famous sculpture of Swami Vivekananda at Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari. A sculpture usually takes anything from two months to two years to make and costs between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 2.5 crore. The space, currently being run by Sonavadekar’s former pupil Balakrishna Vasant Panchal, has now been shut for two years with plans to relocate it to the Mumbai Goa Highway

About The Author

Ashish Sharma

Ashish Sharma is an award-winning photojournalist with a lens that captures the 'moment' in its minutest detail. With over a decade in photojournalism, he is currently Deputy Photo Editor at Open Magazine

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