TN entrepreneur helps kin 'relive memories' through statuettes of people who died due to Covid-19

Techie turned entrepreneur, Arun Titan is helping to ease the pain of the families of people who died due to Covid-19 through lifelike statuettes of the deceased.

Titan's company, Silaii, used to make lifelike statuettes of everyone from politicians to actors. But with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, orders of statuettes of people who died due to the virus have gone up.

Titan narrates an incident when he couriered a statuette to a family in Bengaluru. Three days later, he got a call from the man's 26-year-old daughter. "There was complete silence on the other end," recalls Titan.

"A few seconds later, I heard sobbing. I was stunned and speechless, as I did not know who it was." The woman broke down upon seeing her father immortalised in stone. Titan has many stories like this to narrate.

"Many people lost their lives during the pandemic, that loss was something that is irreplaceable but I think that our sculptures played a very important part in bringing back those memories," said Krithika Ananth, General Manager of Silaii.

Over the years, Silaii has produced several statuettes of politicians including Dravidian icons such as Periyar, M. Karunanidhi, M.G. Ramachandran, J. Jayalalithaa, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and B.R. Ambedkar.

On August 2, President Ramnath Kovind, who was in Chennai for the centenary celebrations of the state assembly, was presented with a miniature model of two feet wide and 10 inches high made by Silaii, capturing the assembly building's history and heritage.

Titan started Silaii in 2019 after spending some time with a tech company and working as a photographer for AR Rehman.

"We always thought sculptures are something which are out of our reach. It could be in a public display or it could be in an exhibition. Basically, it used to be in a place that is not inhabited by us. Now, I think we have bridged that gap. Now you can touch a sculpture, you can personally relate to that person," added Ananth.

( With inputs from ANI )

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