President amazed by gold sculpture on grain of rice: Ganesh Subramaniam achieves rare feat

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Poojappura native Ganesh Subramaniam needs only a grain of rice to mount a gold sculpture. His fame spread from the Travancore Royal Palace to the President's Office when he sculpted gold granules to make Geetopadesha, Maha Ganapati and the five-faced Virat Vishwakarma Deva on rice grains. It was exhibited at the President's Office two months ago. President Draupadi Murmu was amazed after seeing the sculptures through a lens.

Ganesh has also created nano sculptures like Dasavatharam, Sree Padmanabhaswamy, Attukal Bhagavathy, Geetopadesam, Murugaswamy, Swami Ayyappan, Crucified Christ, and Mecca Medina. Each sculpture weighs only 1 to 25 milligrams. When the spectator looks at the rice grain, it seems like something the size of an ant is above it, but it becomes an extraordinary sight when checked through a lens. Ganesh Subramaniam (50), born into a goldsmith family, creates wonders on rice grains by hand. It takes one to six months to sculpt.

Ganesh saw a picture of a small house in a book and thought, "Why not make a small sculpture out of gold?" Then, in 2005, he made the first sculpture of a boatman.

Gold medal from Uthradam Thirunal

In 2009, Ganesh gave a statue of Sri Padmanabhaswamy as a birthday gift to Uthradam Thirunal Marthanda Varma of the Travancore Palace. When Uthradam Thirunal suggested that the statue be made wearable, Ganesh made it into a ring. Since the statue could not be seen, a button was placed on one side. When it was pressed, a lens would pop up from the spring, through which Padmanabhaswamy could be seen. He received a gold medal as a token of appreciation. The first public exhibition was in 2010.