Carving beauty out of nothing; Dr Tommy Varghese and his favorite pastime

KOCHI: There is beauty in pieces of waste woods. This is not any philosophical rant. Take a look into the life of Retd. Colonel Dr Tommy Varghese. He has a favourite pastime of creating captivating sculptures out of waste wood.

Tommy, a community medicine expert, began collecting oddly shaped pieces of wood when he worked in Andaman Nicobar, Assam and the Indo-Tibetan border. He uses sandpaper to polish the wood collected. Special care is followed not to touch the wood with polish or paint. He doesn’t even chisel the wood for sculpting. According to his genius, nature has already showered beauty to the wood and there is no need to embellish it further.

A native of Angamaly, Dr Tommy has been living in Ernakulam Marine Drive for the last 14 years. Tommy takes pride in his varied collection of driftwood that is meticulously arranged across his house on walls and on wooden stools, covered in white satin cloth.

Most of the collection consists of figures hidden in the decaying parts of paddock trees in Andaman.

Bicycle kick, cave, snake worship, Christ, call for help, traffic police, bird, horses, faith, flower vase, crane, duck, and wrestling make up the 550 odd sculptures that rest in his house in Kochi. They range from 0 to over 45 cm in height. Having organized 15 exhibitions in different states, Tommy is working on setting up his museum.

This pastime works only if it gets due encouragement and there is no shortage of it from Tommy’s family as his wife Mary, daughter Scindia Cyriak and son Shinoy are always by his side.