Rourkela: Lord Jagannath’s blessing and an indomitable passion to do something different with 21 types of seeds have catapulted a Steel City girl into the India Book of Records (IBR). The inspiring feat of 15-year-old Smrutirekha Nayak, a Class X student of Chinmaya Vidyalaya in Rourkela, is really commendable and her achievement is a testament to the fact that a human being’s creativity can create wonders on anything, even something as mundane and small as seeds.
However, Smrutirekha thoughtfully attaches a great philosophy with her idea as she chose 21 different varieties of seeds to paint them with devotion and transformed those from mundane to divine with her art. “I chose seeds because a seed is the basis of life, something which carries life in it. And Lord Jagannath is the seed of our life. So, I thought what could be better than this,” she explained the philosophy behind her creation. Poised with this philosophy, Smruti got down to the daunting task of creating the pictures of the sibling deities — Jagannath, Subhadra and Balabhadra, on 21 types of seeds. “For 16 hours I worked relentlessly without any break to create these 21 images of different sizes, starting from 0.3 cm to 0.8 cm length,” she said over phone from her residence at Chhend. “I used seeds of black gram, lemon, pumpkin, coriander and others,” she added. She went to Puri and as per her own admission; she perhaps got a divine calling and suddenly thought about approaching the IBR. “It was a sort of pilgrimage. I watched the trinity inside the temple and I found myself completely lost. After that I met the priests and showed them my artworks and they were also astonished.” “I waited for some time after sending the video of my creation to IBR as there was no reply. I got a reply from them June 27 confirming my selection and soon I got the certificate and other gifts from IBR.” She gave credits to her parents, to those who encouraged her and also the Lord himself. “It was the blessings of the Lord that I have got the award,” she said.
RAJESH MOHANTY, OP