Vijay Khaatu the first sculptor who sculpted the Eco-Friendly Ganesh Idol!!!

                                      

Vijay Khaatu, one of the well known sculptors of Mumbai and the first man who sculpted the eco-friendly Ganesh idol. Well, most of us wonder what this eco-friendly Ganesha is, here is the answer to it, most of the Ganesh Idols are made from POP (Plaster-Of-Paris) but the eco-friendly Ganesha is made from black mud which melts immediately in the water after immersion, while the regular Ganesha that are made from POP floats on water and takes some time to melt into water.

Well, let us know something more about Vijay Khaatu, this 56 year old man has seen lot of struggle in his life, he completed his class 7 education from R.M. Bhatt School, and due to unstable financial conditions he later completed his S.S.C. from a night School in Lalbaug, Saraswati Vidhya Mandir, as he used to work during day time. While he was completing his education, he took a keen interest in drawing so much so that he cleared his Elementary and Intermediate Drawing Examination.

     

                                               

Soon after clearing his examination he applied for a sculpting course in Sir J.J. Arts College, and in 1975 he cleared this course of sculpting. Ever since then, he started designing idols of various other Gods, while Ganesha was his favorite right from the beginning. 

Currently Vijay Khaatu, makes the Ganesha idols at the Railway Work Shop Ground,Parel, where you will get to see the variety of Ganesha’s on one side of the ground. On the other side you will find that there are many Ganesha Idols that looked similar to each other. I asked Mr. Khaatu why they all looked same, he said that, “Lot of people have made it a business, while none of them know how to actually design the Ganesha Idol, they make the idols that look similar to each other because they make the idols from the Dye, whereas, we make the idols with different designs and we really work hard on every individual idol and we take a lot of time to make even a single Idol of Lord Ganesha.”