Wife who died 3 years ago attends function, unique example of husband’s love

Koppal (Karnataka) : A 56-year-old businessman in Karnataka’s Koppal has turned his sorrow into a souvenir. Srinivas Gupta has got a life-size statue of his late wife installed at his new home for the house-warming ceremony.

“We managed to get a silicone replica of our mother, K.V.N. Madhavi, from a fabricator in Bengaluru. It took us almost a year to get it done, and we showcased our mother’s statue in our new house,” Sindhusha, Gupta’s youngest daughter told IANS on Tuesday.

Gupta’s wife succumbed to injuries following an accident in 2017 while she was on her way to the Tirupathi temple in Andhra Pradesh.

The vehicle she was travelling in hit a reversing truck in Kolar, leading to her untimely demise.

“We were also inside the vehicle but nothing happened to us but we lost our mother,” said Sindhusha.

The Gupta family hails from Andhra Pradesh. While Srinivas Gupta is from West Godavari district headquarters Eluru, his wife was from Guntur.

“Twenty years ago, our family moved to Koppal for better business prospects. My father is a human hair exporter. He buys hair at the Tirupathi temple auction,” said Sindhusha.

“Since we relocated from our native place and we did not have a large circle of family or friends here, the four of us were very close to each other,” said Sindusha who studied chemical engineering and joined her father’s business.

Gupta and his daughters could not recover from the sorrow of the untimely loss for two years since the incident. But they have been trying to rebuild their lives for the past year now.

After recovering from his wife’s loss, Gupta decided to keep her memory alive and first thought of getting a wax statue made.

“Wax models are not suitable for the climate in Koppal, so we were advised to go for a silicone one, which is sturdier,” said the younger daughter.

Apart from being sturdy, the silicone model also enables the daughters to change its clothes and jewellery.

To ensure that the model is a splitting image of their mother, the daughters made multiple trips to the Gombaymane shop in Bengaluru where the modelling for the image was done. The elder daughter Anusha made multiple trips as she resembles her mother more.

She is an MBA graduate and looks after the financial aspects of her father’s business.

Gupta’s wife’s life-size statue arrived on August 3 from Bengaluru right in time for the house-warming ceremony on Friday.

On the special day, videos of the family went viral in which the silicone model of Madhavi was the centre of attraction.

Gupta and his two daughters were seen arranging and giving final touches to Madhavi’s statue adorned in a beautiful pink saree and gold jewellery.

The family posed for photographs with Madhavi’s model and Gupta sat beside it.

“We are very happy now and our mother’s image will occupy the central place in our new home. We will showcase her in the courtyard in the middle of our new home,” Sindhusha said.

The family has been pleasantly surprised by the attention that they have got from the media for their labour of love.

“We were not prepared for such media attention. We did not inform any journalist about it. Somebody forwarded it on social media and it went viral,” said Sindhusha. Her father has already been busy giving interviews for a couple of days now.