Architect gives flight to unique passion

Sunil Dev Prasanna was just 12 years old when his mother took him to a toy store where he set his eyes on a miniature model of the US fighter jet F-15E Strike Eagle.

“While my cousins and friends were interested in GI Joe’s and other toys, I was more into aeroplanes, aircraft and cars. I remember buying the aircraft set and assembling it in an hour,” Sunil fondly recalled. This was the beginning of his love for model making that has lasted a lifetime.

An architect by profession, Sunil now judiciously divides his time between work and his hobby devoting about eight hours every week to model making. Though college was hectic, he found a way to pursue his passion.

“My thesis in college was on an air force museum. I integrated my hobby with college work. In any case college work involved a lot of model making,” said Sunil who studied at the RV College of Architecture.

The hobby involves a lot of skill as it is not just replicating a model but pinning down the details to its smallest aspects. Various models like the Panther Mk-1 tank, Hellcat F6F fighter plane, Mirage 2000 fighter jet cover a table top in Sunil’s living room.
Picking up the Mirage 2000 model, he explained: “There are people who get the details of the engines and even the plumbing of an aircraft. They go to such extents to ensure that everything is exact.”

While model making is a rage in the United States of America and many European countries, unfortunately there are not many who know about it in India.
This, according to Sunil is due to the unavailability of kits and the high cost of importing them. “There are people in foreign countries who bring out their own magazines and even earn a livelihood out of this hobby. In India there are probably only about 50 people who know about this hobby. In the City, there is hardly anyone,” he said.
With the aim to change this, Sunil and his wife, Zoya Sinha who picked up the hobby from her husband, are all set to organise  what is perhaps the first professional model-making workshop in the City.