A walk through Athula’s homegrown Madame Tussauds
The Colombo Wax Museum is a truly surreal experience: you walk into and meet a pantheon of stars of our time – standing, sitting, or even cocktail in hand, lounging! Wandering around, it takes time for you to not jump at every corner, so life-like are the wax figures.
Within the glitzy premises, you find a mélange of celebrities from a stately Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike to pop icons Rihanna, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, a whole gallery dedicated to Indian stars from Rajnikanth to Aishwarya Rai, many a Sri Lankan legend from Malini Fonseka to Pundit Amaradeva but also Brad Pitt and Mr. Bean; you can have your pick of selfies.
Athula Herath with his gallery of fame: (clockwise) Mahendra Perera
Located in the Arcade Independence Square, Colombo 7, which is isolated that Tuesday morning with only a few couples walking around, the museum however is fast garnering popularity. Even at ten in the morning a few eager visitors trickle in, one of them a Sri Lankan girl married to a Brit and living in East London. They had recently visited the London Madame Tussauds, and the girl enthused about the quality of our local museum.
Having opened in late January this year, this museum has a story that connects it to Madame Tussauds.
In 2000, young artist Athula Herath was walking down Kotugodella Veediya in his native Kandy when a vendor selling stacks of old books by the road attracted his attention. A beautiful pictorial volume enticed the young man and he parted with a sum for a tome which happened to have beguiling pictures of wax figures at Madame Tussauds- Princess Diana in her silk wedding gown among them.
, Lester James Peries, Victor Rathnayake and Sunil Ariyaratne
To the captivated youth’s mind entered the germ of an idea to do something totally novel to the island: a celebrity wax museum. After trying (and despairing over) local material, he had to procure from abroad the right wax. Having learnt the craft from scratch, Athula’s first attempt was a likeness of the folk musician Lionel Ranwala. It was not a success, but undeterred, Athula went on to do his second figure of the actor Mahendra Perera which took him one and a half years.
Mahendra was beguiled by the result and invited a smattering of local stars to ‘unveil’ the statue. It was then proposed to sculpt a likeness of the Queen of Sinhala Cinema, Malini Fonseka.
The process of wax sculpting, says Athula, is complicated: at Madame Tussauds a team of 25 including photographers assembles for one wax statue. At first the statue is made with clay and then converted to wax. Creating the eyes of each statue is painstaking, and to create the exact cornea and colour for his figures, Athula consulted medical professionals.
His fourth statue was of Victor Ratnayake who was “immensely helpful” to Athula.
A nod to Bollywood: Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. Pix by Indika Handuwala
The first museum Athula set up on the request of the Diyawadana Nilame of the Dalada Maligawa. was the Kandy Wax Museum housed in the former manorial residence of the Adigar Ehelepola, They had to drive out the bats who had made the walauwwa their abode and procure it from the UDA to which it belonged, and assemble a team of historians to curate while Athula himself had to read piles of books in preparation for creating a historical tableau in wax figures.
Today all proceeds from tickets go to the Maligawa’s funds to support charity work, says Athula.
The wax statue collection of our leaders at the Polonnaruwa Ancient Technology Museum was done on request by then President Maithripala Sirisena, and featured all our Prime Ministers and Presidents from D. S. Senanayake to Maithripala Sirisena.
Athula’s son Mahima, an architect by profession, designed the Colombo Wax Museum and while abroad would study many a wax museum in every country he visited.
Athula’s dearest wish however remained to do a celebrity wax museum, and today in the Colombo Wax Museum, his personal project with Mahima keeps alive a cornucopia of characters whom the younger generations may not be familiar with such as Lester James Peries and Jayalath Manoratne. A team of five assists him in his work.
“Also, Colombo has very few places of interest to visit. So we are trying now to make this museum an excursion of an hour or two, to attract tourists,” says Athula, adding they are “open to suggestions- as young people come and suggest what celebrities should be added”.
Madame Tussaud herself started learning the craft at eleven under her ‘uncle’ Dr. Philippe Curtius, and later after the French Revolution had the terrible vocation of creating death masks of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and their friend Princesse de Lamballe (in fact Madame Tussauds friends) and Jean-Paul Marat.
Afterwards England received Marie Tussaud the artist with open arms and however rudimentary her first works were, encouraged her to pursue her craft. This kind of support, Athula mourns, is lacking in our country.
Athula has plans to do more museums though “time is the problem” he smiles.
The Colombo Wax Museum is located on the first floor of Arcade (opposie the Bank of Ceylon). Tickets for Sri Lankan adults are Rs. 1500 while children can enter for Rs. 750. For tourists the charge is 20 USD for adults and 10 USD for children. Students and large groups get concessionary prices.
The museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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