Sudarsan Pattnaik builds 45-feet-tall Santa.
AB Wire
Internationally acclaimed sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik, who is also the recipient of the Padma Shri award, has created a 45-feet-high sand Santa Claus with a “World Peace” message at Puri beach in Odisha to celebrate Christmas, on Thursday.
Pattnaik tweeted: “My sand #SantaClaus of 45-feet high now is complete at #puribeach Odisha india, hope for a #worldrecord ,#Christmasâ€
Patnaik’s sand statue is likely to be recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records and the Limca Book of Records as the world’s tallest Santa made of sand.
“I have appealed to Limca Book of Records to place this record in their book. We broke our own previous record,” Patnaik said.
Sudarsan used more than 1000 tons of sand with some colored sand in creating Santa. He was assisted by 20 of his students at the Sudarsan Sand Art Institute of Puri.
The team took 22 hours in two days to build up the mammoth structure, which is on display from Thursday  till January 1.
Sudarsan has also created from sand Lord Jesus and Mother Mary, and the acclaimed Black Taj Mahal.
He is the founder of “The Golden Sand Art Institute” and has represented India in 50 international sand sculpture championship and festivals all around the world and won 27 championship prizes for the country.
In 2013, he won the gold medal at St. Petersburg in the 12th International sand sculpture competition, grand prizes at the International Sand Competition, in Denmark and also won the Moscow museum prize in Russia.