Veena Made Of Match Sticks
C.P. Ajith Kumar of Tirupur with his veena made of match sticks. C.P. Ajith Kumar who runs a sample dyeing unit at Tirupur has an interesting hobby. He makes figurines out of match sticks. The latest and the prettiest among his works is a veena which is made using 63,654 match sticks. This veena produces the same quality of sound as the original instrument usually made out of jackfruit tree wood, Mr. Ajith says. Being a musician too, he has a special interest in making musical instruments out of match sticks.
For instance, he has made miniature models of a violin and veena before venturing into making an actual model which could be played by a musician. “The work requires a lot of concentration and hard work. I took approximately 756 hours to complete the veena,” Mr. Kumar says. Since he had to balance his job with this rare hobby, the project took longer than expected, he says – about one-and-a-half years. “Every day after I came back home from work, I was at my workshop completing and perfecting my veena,” he says. Most of the days, his work started at night and stretched into the early hours of the morning.
The veena would last long and would not break easily as the match sticks have been reinforced using adhesive and several layers of varnish have been applied to it. Mr. Kumar is an artist too. His paintings, especially the reproductions of Raja Ravi Varma’s works have been favourites at the exhibitions of his works he often conducts. Though he had always been making tiny models and artefacts using clay, cement and paper pulp, the idea of using match sticks was an experimentation to start with, he says.
He is a connoisseur in bottle art too. He has made a Taj Mahal in a bottle. “It is challenging, but then it is worth the effort,” he says.He plans to send his works to the Guinness Book of World Records. But, that is only after his next project, a ‘thamburu’ out of match sticks.
