Trippanachi (Malappuram): An astounding portrait of football superstar Lionel Messi that takes the entire floor space of a big auditorium!
That’s how Ashiq Shabeel (21), a native of Trippanachi village in Kerala's Malappuram district , showed his admiration for his favourite sports star.
He started loading his brush with paint for the humongous feat a month ago.
He finally completed the portrait while in Mumbai a couple of days back and has flown back to display the realistic portrait at a huge auditorium in his homeland.
People from far and near are flocking to ‘Dreams Auditorium’ here to laud the youth’s talent.
Though the auditorium was initially hired out for a single day on Friday, the owner allowed the gifted artist to continue the exhibition for two more days.
Challenging task
The portrait, 12-meter long and 10-meter wide, covers 1,319 square meters.
Ashiq carefully drew various sections of the image of the football star.
He first downloaded on his mobile phone Messi’s picture and converted them into a grid pattern on many A-3 papers.
Then he joined them all together to finally ready the enormous portrait of his hero.
He precisely calculated the parts to be depicted in each of the A-3 sheets. The youth then devoted all his free time, sometimes the entire holidays that he got, to carefully draw the portrait sections. The youth brought them back home in a big box.
In all 983 A-3 papers were needed to complete his dream project.
Initially, Ashiq’s plan was to display his work on an open turf. But he dropped the plan, given the chances of the canvas papers being swept away by the wind. It was then that he approached the owner of the auditorium who readily agreed.
Ashiq is a student of Draughtsman (Mechanical) diploma course at the Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited in Mumbai.
Mini World Cup from Sunday
Even before the ball rolls for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, a ‘Mini World Cup’ carnival is set to be staged at Malappuram.
The football carnival organized by Malappuram Argentina Fans Collective will take place at the Malappuram Bypass Arena from 4 pm on Sunday (Nov 6).
A total of 16 teams representing the World Cup teams will clash with each other in the festival.
The teams will take to the field not only with the name but also by donning the official jersey of the WC teams. There will be six players on each team. It will be a knockout event.
P Ubaidulla, MLA, Santosh Trophy player K Firoz and coach Shajirudeen will attend.
There is a plan to organize a grand football expo at the MSP Ground with the first match of the WC.
As part of this, there will be a fanfest, an exhibition featuring the World Cup teams and the history of the World Cup and the live telecast of the WC matches on a big screen.
