Two cranes were needed to get the statue into Vijay's home.
An Indian husband has honoured his late wife with a marble replica of her and talks to the statue every day.
Seventy-year-old Vijay Kumara, of Chandigarh, lost his wife Veena to blood cancer in 2019.
But he has managed to honour their marriage with a life-size marble recreation of her, which weighs 157 stone and stands 5ft 1.
It took six weeks to transform the marble block into a lookalike of Veena.
The statue now serves as a touching reminder of the couple’s marriage.
The statue has been chiselled and painted to resemble Veena, featuring painted grey hair and a pink saree.
Two cranes were needed to get the statue into Vijay’s home.
Veena’s statue is positioned below a selection of portraits of Vijay’s late wife as he can be seen embracing her.
Vijay has also written five books in memory of her.
He says he wanted to convey the gravity of the love and affection held between wife and husband to today’s youngsters.
And Vijay is not the only Indian husband to have a statue of their late wife.
Retired civil servant Tapas Sandilya spent £2,500 on a silicone statue of his late wife.
He had been married to Indrani for 39 years before her untimely death on May 4, 2021.
She passed away alone in hospital as Tapas was forced to isolate at their home in Kolkata during India’s second wave of Covid-19.
In memory of his late wife, Tapas commissioned a sculptor to create a silicone statue of Indrani.
Weighing 30 kilograms, the statue now sits on the sofa, adorned in a saree and gold jewellery. Tapas even combs the statue’s hair.
Tapas said his family was against the idea, but he argued that having a statue made in her image to remember her was not much different from people who keep photographs of their late loved ones on display at home.
A few months after her death, Tapas searched for a sculptor and eventually found Subimal Das.
Subimal, who usually creates figures out of wax, fibreglass and silicone for museums, calls this one of his most challenging projects.
Explaining why the project took more than six months, Subimal said:
“It was absolutely necessary for the statue to have a realistic facial expression.”
Tapas worked with Subimal for the clay-moulding phase as nothing less than Indrani’s real facial expression would do for him.
He also went to a tailor for the statue’s saree.
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