Puri: Sand artists from Odisha, Sudarsan Pattnaik and Manas Sahoo, have devoted their works to the Rath Yatra, or the car festival, celebrated every year in Puri.
Pattnaik has created 125 sand chariots and a sand sculpture of Lord Jagannath at Puri beach in Odisha. He has already a record of creating 100 sand chariots placed in Limca Books of World Records. Now he is attempting to create another record for the Limca Book of Records.
He said sand art is believed to have originated during Rath Yatra in the 16th century by Balaram Das, a staunch devotee of Jagannath and a famous poet who was once humiliated by servitors and not allowed to pull the chariots during Rath Yatra. He then went to the beach and sculpted chariots on the sand.
Through his sand animation, Sahoo has depicted the construction of the Shree Jagannath Temple, the construction of the chariots, and how the Lord is coming out of the temple to give darshan to the devotees. He has beautifully animated the scene of the devotees being enthralled by the sight of the Lord in a chariot as they have not seen the Lord for the last two years due to the pandemic.
It took Sahoo 10 hours to make this 1-minute and 16-second video. In it, he conveyed the message of “Happy Rath Yatra” to the whole world and asked all to wear masks while attending the festival.
