Telangana artist sets record for sculpting smallest functional violin out of gold

Mattewada Ajay Kumar, an eminent micro-artist from Warangal, has once again made it to the Limca Book of Records. This time, his work of wonder is a violin - a gold violin with metallic strings and a bow produces sound but weighs only 0.74 mg and is 20 mm in length! Along with this, yet another creation that has got him a mention in the Limca Book is a tiny gold scissors, weighing 0.18 mg. While the scissors may not look functional, it can make some neat little cuts on a sheet of paper, says Ajay.

Speaking to TNM, Ajay Kumar, a goldsmith who has been making micro-art for the past 29 years, says that it took him 11 hours to finish sculpting the violin and three hours to finish the scissors.

“I first entered the Limca Book of Records in 2004 for making the tiniest seven-levered lock that weighed around 1.5 gram, and a miniature fan,” the 45-year-old artist recollects.

Ajay Kumar had earlier shot to fame after he carved the Dandi March inside the eye of a needle on October 2 last year. The figures were between 0.18 mm and 1.09 mm in length, and 0.21 mm to 0.18 mm in width. The sculpture was not visible to the naked eye and required a microscope to view. Ajay became the third micro-artist in the world after 61-year-old Willard Wigan and 46-year-old Yury Deulin to sculpt inside the eye of a needle.

“I began practicing micro-art on rice granules where I painted faces of famous personalities on grains of rice. Later on, I started experimenting with matchsticks and then started sculpting with gold,” Ajay Kumar says. It was from his father Venkata Chary, who was also a goldsmith by profession, that Ajay learnt the art of micro-sculpting. “The Dandi march statues are a tribute to my father who was also a freedom fighter.”

Ajay has also received appreciation from former president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, former late prime ministers PV Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee for sending them their portraits painted on rice granules. “It’s a lot of strain to look through a microscope and carve models. Hence, I do not work more than four to five hours on a sculpture in a day,” Ajay had told TNM earlier.

On August 15, 2018, Ajay had made news for carving a freedom fighter holding the national flag atop a pin head. Last year, he was appreciated for sculpting models of Lord Ganesha and Jesus inside a needle head.