This Telangana Talli statue is a tribute to the rural woman

Telangana Congress chief Revanth Reddy commissioned the 9-foot statue

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy unveiled a new Telangana Talli statue at the Gandhi Bhavan here on Saturday to mark the occasion of ‘Integration Day’.

This statue is completely different from the one usually seen in the State. Raju Prajapathi of Kishan Bag, who designed it, says: “There are several differences between the existing Telangana Talli and the one I designed. The new one represents a common, rural woman. She does not have ornaments befitting a goddess, a kiritam (crown) or other expensive wearables. She represents a rural woman — she wears koppu (top-knot) and flowers in her hair. As for jewellery, she has a kante around her neck. Then there is kadiyalu on her ankle as opposed to patta golusulu in the old statue. She also holds vanke in her hand. The statue size is about nine feet whereas the old one is between five and a half feet to seven feet.”

The statue was dressed in tricolour in standing posture, holding branches of sugarcane and jowar in left hand and blessing people with the right one. Branches of the two crops were kept in her hand representing the major crops of the State.

It took about 10 days for Mr. Raju, who has an experience of about 27 years in statue-making, to craft the statue in clay and then with fibre. “It was entirely Mr. Revanth Reddy’s idea. I gave shape to his idea representing a common woman as Telangana Talli,” Mr Raju said.