Moscow, Nov 09: India's celebrated sand artist
Sudarsan Pattnaik is creating a 20-foot high replica of the
Taj Mahal in the Dutch city of Amsterdam for the India Fest
beginning on Wednesday.
Winner of several international awards including Moscow
and Berlin championships of sand artists, Pattnaik will be
using around 100 tonnes of sand to create the copy of the
17th century's Monument of Love, now included among the new
Seven Wonders of the World, in front of Rijks Museum.
This will be his biggest sand Taj Mahal outside India
with a height of approximately 20 feet. "Co-artists Manas
Kumar Sahoo and Bulu Mohanty are helping me to create it by
the 12th afternoon," Pattnaik said to a news agency over phone from
Amsterdam.
"My aim is to create 100 sand Taj Mahals worldwide and
the sand Taj in Amsterdam will be 38th," he added.
The Amsterdam-India Fest is a three week long cultural
festival in the Dutch city of Tulips.
Organised by the Concert Hall society of Amsterdam in
association with the City Hall and the Government of
Netherlands, the India Festival from November 12-28 would be
an all-round event comprising different aspects of Indian
art, culture, cinema and cuisine in which many of the top
artistes from India will take part.
Bureau Report
First Published: Sunday, November 09, 2008, 00:00